Good Things Come: The Unexpected

Our weekend did not go as we has anticipated. Gran and Poppy were coming in town for an overnight visit and we had a nice evening at home in mind. That plan was flipped on its head rather quickly. Kennedy developed a cough on Thursday, but it didn't seem to slow her down. She was still playing at full speed and even riding around on her tricycle before dinner. During the night she began running a fever and her coughing persisted. I took her into our pediatrician 1st thing Friday morning and shared our concerns especially for her breathing. She said it was a very good thing that I brought her in as soon as I did, because she was much sicker than she was acting. After a in-office breathing treatment, her oxygen saturation levels were still not above 92%. Therefore, we were sent straight to the hospital for admission and after chest X-rays she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was immediately hooked up to oxygen on 1.5L, she began two different antibiotics, and a breathing treatment regimen of every 2hrs.

They had trouble getting an IV in place and Kennedy kept saying, "All done!" Once they were successful it was placed in the bend of her right arm. This was probably the worst place for Kennedy. It prevented her from being able to suck her favorite thumb. We tried to convince her that she could use her left thumb, but she was not in agreement with us. Gran and Poppy still came to visit, but they had to split their time between the hospital with Kennedy and our house with Drake.

Luckily little kids are resilient and she began feeling better as quickly as she started getting sick. She decided to wean herself off of the oxygen on Saturday night when she took off her cannula at 1am. When I noticed she was able to keep her sats up on her own, I decided putting the cannula back on was not a battle that I wanted to fight. Since we have so many medical resources at home and her breathing treatments had been spaced to every 4hrs, the doctors decided to go ahead and discharge us on Sunday afternoon.

As a parent you never get used to having a child in the hospital, but being in the hospital with Kennedy definitely caught us off guard. It is scary how two years after their early birth they are still extremely vulnerable to illnesses to the point of hospitalization. Because there is such a fine line between healthy at home and sick in the hospital, Kennedy will begin a preventative breathing treatment twice a day for the next year once she finishes her steroids.

Having 24hr nursing for Drake was such a blessing during this time! Knowing that we have nurses in place who we trust took a huge weight off of our shoulders. He is doing so much better and his nurses have been commenting on how clear his lungs have been lately. We are finally starting to get back to where he was before he got sick a few weeks ago. He is off of his oxygen support and has been breathing room air for the past 5 days!!!

She managed to bend the board enough to suck her favorite thumb...yes, this did block the flow of the IV and set off many alarms. It was a short lived success for Kennedy because the nurses had to retape the board and she lost her thumb again :(