Viral Pneumonia

Now that's a blog title!

Um, so, uh, yeah! It's been a busy week. First, viral pneumonia is not nearly as bad as bacterial pneumonia. And, indeed, we caught Bridget's viral pneumonia/chest cold early.

Ok. So let's back up a bit. Bridget appeared to come down with croup (from her brother, as you may recall) last Monday. I am not that worried about croup, so I saw no need to call the doctor. And then Bridget sort of melted over both Dave and me and wouldn't move from sitting in our lap with her head on our shoulder.

Lethargy is never a good sign in a feisty child, particularly one with a fever.

Additionally, Monday night, Bridget started throwing up. Tuesday morning, we opted to go in to the doctor, because again, Bridget could not even lift her head off our shoulder.

I expected the doc to give me another lecture about how viruses can cause croup, blah, blah, but instead he put Bridget right on a nebulizer. Fortunately, her breathing cleared up so no need for x-rays or oxygen. Instead, we went home with an albuterol inhaler and orders to come back Friday.

The virus continued this course for a while. Bridget has no energy, ran a high-ish fever (102 to 104), threw up, and as she got better, had diarrhea. And of course, there was the junky cough. Coughs are not good indicators of chest colds/viral pneumonias. Lethargy is. REMEMBER THAT if your child loses all his or her energy.

So, yeah. She's better now. The ultra-conservative doctor put her on an antibiotic which freaked both Dave and me out. This doc HATES antibiotics and to give her one without her having a bacterial infection really freaked me out.

In any case, school starts back next week and I am completely not ready for it. Last week, I had planned on doing what I'm doing this week. But I couldn't leave my little baby while she was this sick. So I'm trying to catch up this week before next week starts. I'm a wee bit freaked out.