Adam and Grace have had colds all this week. However, Adam quickly got over his, while Grace just got more and more sick.
Her temperature wouldn't come down from 103-104 range at all (no matter the medication or the cool baths) on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, her temperature came down to 102, but she was borderline lethargic; only sleeping all day. Her breathing was very wheezy and her cough horrible. She has refused to eat anything since Thursday, and wouldn't drink on Friday/Saturday morning at all.
I finally got her into the doctor on Saturday morning (everyone has some serious cold bug around here, and they had been booked solid for days), where he gave her a breathing treatment, an x-ray (to rule out pneumonia), and prescribed her some antibiotics for what he called a 'most serious case of bronchiolitis,' and sent us on our way.
Two antibiotic doses (and several breathing treatments) later, and she's a new person. She's drinking. She's talking. She's awake. She's walking around and giggling. She's breathing much better. Her fever is history. She's coughing, but things are breaking up. She's on her way to being completely better. Seeing the difference that antibiotics can make is amazing.
On Friday, I laid next to her in bed all night, awake. She was so feverish, her breathing so bad, so completely out-of-it, that I was worried I would need to take her to the emergency room. I knew that we were getting into the doctor the next morning, and hoped we would make it through the night without things getting worse.
And as I laid there, I thought about the pioneers. The mothers who probably listened to their children's breathing through the night, who put cool cloths on their children's foreheads to try and bring the fever down, who stayed up all night praying for them to get through the night.
Just like I was doing.
But, I also had the knowledge that if things got too bad, we could go to the E.R., where she would get immediate help. That we were going to the doctor the next morning. That we have been blessed with incredible skilled doctors and pharmacies full of amoxicillin and albuterol. That everything would be okay.
They didn't. And I can't even begin to imagine their sorrow when their children didn't get better.
How grateful I am today for the blessings of science and medicine that we've been given. It's something that I've always been thankful for, but my gratitude is deeper today. Thinking of the pioneers, thinking of how many children died not that long ago from, and knowing that if it was a hundred or so years ago and how absolutely sick Grace was, that she literally could have died from her illness, makes my gratitude take on a new meaning.
1 comment:
I think about that so much, Allison. I especially think about how thankful I am that your news, sad or glad, is just minutes away, and that, if you need, we can be there in a few hours. Pioneers left their families, often knowing that they would never again see each other in this life. I am thankful for their sacrifices, and I am so thankful for doctors, hospitals, phones, email, blogs, cars, and airplanes. We are so blessed, even in the most trying of times. Give Gracie lots of hugs from Papa and Grammy, and YOU, my dear, get some rest (when that precious little butterfly goes to sleep!)
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