It Pays to Know People!

Thanks to Cathy (Annabel's mommy), some of you already know we are in the hospital with Mallorie. I wanted to let you know she's much better, though we're still here.

Mal got some sort of respiratory illness toward the end of the past week, and by yesterday morning, it looked like she was really working at breathing. I had been flushing her nose with saline, and suctioning her throughout the night, and gave her extra pedialyte to help loosen her secretions, and just felt she needed more of the same in the morning, but when I was done, it just wasn't enough to ease her breathing, and I was worried about how much effort she was putting into breathing. (It didn't help that I'd dreamed in the night that she had been intubated and was on a vent at the childrens hospital where we had spent February, and had pulled out the tube and removed part of her mouth ... and a collection of residents were arguing about who got to sew her mouth back on!)

At one moment Hannah, 14, (who panics even more than I do) took Mal in her arms and announced, "We need to go to the hospital," and Matthew, 11, asked, "What if it's croup? I know when I have that, I feel like, This is it. It's the day I'm going to die, because I can't breathe." And then a second later, Cathy asked in a text, "Does Dr. B know?"

So then I panicked, because I had been thinking of sending my husband to the pharmacy to buy Neosynephrine drops, ... and everyone around me thinks it's more serious. By the time we got to the ER, we learned her temp was over 106, and x-rays showed pneumonia, so she got admitted to "heaven." (HANNAH JUST TOLD ME TO STOP RIGHT HERE, because that sounds wrong. I meant to heaven on Earth, I guess.)

Both of the hospitals in this town are amazing, and I have worked in the pediatric units of both, so I know the quality of care better than most people. But what I haven't experienced in ages was the blessing of watching my child receive compassionate and excellent care from one of these special pedi units or ER. From Susan in the ER, who listened to how Mal is a difficult IV start, and then quickly and effortlessly started her IV in her usual place (scalp), to Sharon, Betty, Angela, Angie, Helen, Mary Ann, Mary, and Niyah, who have been in and out of our room in the past 24+ hrs, providing care for Mallorie and company for me, and keep telling us how beautiful our sweet girl is, I have never felt "alone" for a moment.

I told a friend this evening that I have felt like we are staying in a wonderful hotel, and dear friends are caring for our baby. Staying in a local hospital is SO much better than going a couple of hours away to the big childrens hospital. Here Mallorie's care is overseen by someone from Dr. B's group, and although we personally love her more than anyone in the world, almost, ... each doctor in the group is a caring and excellent pediatrician, so there is continuity of care and a great sense of safety, no matter who is the current hospitalist.

I was talking with Cathy (Annabel's mommy) this evening, and she asked me, "Can't you get on the computer while you're there? Do you just not want to?" I had no idea what she was talking about, but apparently, you can use the computer in the patient rooms in this hospital??? So here I am.

And here is Mallorie on happy steroids, which is making me wonder how Hannah or I will get any sleep tonight. :)




Thank you for your prayers. And thank you, Cathy, for letting people know through your blog. Thank you, Katha, for letting the co-op moms know. And thank you, Cathy and Dr. B for getting Mallorie onto the ACTS community prayer chain. I'm loving me some sisters right now.

And I guess now that Cathy filled me in on the big computer secret, if we don't get to go home soon, I may be able to update, myself! And you all know me and my cell phone pictures.