On the Mend

It’s been a rough couple of days.  Emma had to go back to the doctor on Friday because she was wheezing so badly at night that I thought I was hearing a continuous old-man snore over the monitor.  I probably let it go a day or two too long, but Friday’s visit to Dr. Breen set me straight.  She has acute bronchiolitis (at first they thought she had pneumonia, but her blood oxygen count was fine, thank goodness) and has to do nebulizer treatments a few times a day for the next week, the same drugs that my grandmother with emphysema was on for ages.  So that freaks me out a little bit.  Emma takes her medicine like a champ, sitting quietly and taking good, deep breaths while she looks through a pile of books.

We’d been on a run of sleepless nights spent either trying to let Emma sleep draped over us or listening to her breathe on the monitor.  Our days have been filled with a tired little girl who feels yucky and is suddenly very much a terrible two when she’s not well.  Climbing to the top of our stairs left her spent and wheezing and she needed to be carried, a lot.  I nearly sewed a new mei tai in an effort to relieve my aching arms! 
The good news is the drugs seem to be working.  She finally slept all night last night, then stood at the bottom of the stairs this morning calling loudly and cheerfully for her Daddy, asking for cereal and demanding that he get up and play with her.  It did my heart good to lie in bed and listen to that clear voice of hers, absent of wheeze for the first time in a week.  She didn’t mention me until well later, when she realized that Daddy might not be home.  So our Emma is feeling better, it seems, and we’re all looking forward to getting out of the house today.