The Fairy and the Mermaid

As most of you probably know by now, we had to take Cora to the hospital on Monday night. Late last week, all of us were struck with a sickness that, among other symptoms, included sore throat and coughing. Hazel bounced back like a champ and Mama is recovering nicely now with some help from some meds, however Cora continued to decline over the Easter weekend. (Speaking of, we'll have to devote a separate post to the fun that was Easter 2011. There is a slideshow for it on the left sidebar)

On Monday, her wheezing got worse and worse and, by end of day, and after a doctor's visit and many doctor's calls, Cora was struggling to breathe. Her chest was heaving but she just acted liked she wasn't getting any air. Add to this that she had already taken the max dosage of Albuterol for a day and we just had an hyped up, ornery girl who was struggling to breathe between cries. So one of the girls' pediatricians, Dr Braybol met Jennifer and Cora at the hospital's pediatric ER. Papa stayed home with Hazel until Mama called him and told him he needed to come in. Grandaddy and Granny were gracious enough to come over and sit with Hazel while Papa went to the hospital.

There he learned Cora would be being admitted with Reactive Airway Disease (R.A.D). Due to her age, there is a change she can outgrow it, but if not, it will be asthma. In children under two years of age, they just call it R.A.D. instead of asthma. It isn't that she can't physically inhale and exhale, because she can, she's just having to do it much more than she should have to, and much deeper attempts, because her blood isn't being oxygenated like normal. She'll need to get back up to speed before being released and not have to reply on so many breathing treatments that she is currently receiving to help her out, not to mention the continuous flow from the nasal cannula. The pediatrician was a trooper and stayed with us in the hospital from 10:30 am until 3:00 am. We really feel blessed to have the doctors we do, and also really thank Grandaddy and Granny for sitting at our house during that same long and late time.

Cora is still at the hospital with Mama and some visitors every now and again. She goes through lucid, happy phases but then will inevitably go back to being fussy when she becomes uncomfortable with her chest and all the tubes again. Understandably, she does not like the tubes and she also has fresh teeth popping through, not to mention a double ear infection she is still recovering from when her tubes were put in. Needless to say, she is not a happy camper but is fighting like a big girl. It is difficult to explain how the emotions returned so vividly when seeing her hooked back up to tubes and wires again. We're not really certain we've really had a chance to absorb the totality of our experience with girls' lives to date due to life going on, but instances like this certainly stand to remind us of the important things again.

Hazel, in the meantime, is doing some fantastic growing and walking, which I'm sure Mama will cover in an upcoming post. For now, she's helping Papa keep the house up while Mama stays with Cora at the hospital.