Children's Hospital

For the past year, every doctor we went to asked if either of the babies had had another hospitalization since coming home. The answer was always 'no'. Every single one of them was shocked and impressed, considering how early they were and their history.

Last Tuesday, I got a call in the afternoon from Respite Care that Payton was running a fever. I called Chris to go get her. Before he made it there, they called back to say her fever hadn't come down with Tylenol and was over 101, and her oxygen sats were down to about 80. I called Chris and told him to get her and take her straight to the pediatrician. I call ed the doctor's office to tell them that they were coming in.

Chris called me at work to say they had put her on oxygen in the office and they were doing a direct admit to the hospital from there. I went and grabbed Parker and met them at the office. We switched kids in the parking lot and I took Payton to Children's Hospital to be admitted.

She was borderline critical when we got there. I heard the word 'vent' thrown out a few times. It was not good. I can't even count the number of people that came in to talk to us in those first few hours.

The problem with a baby with chronic lung disease and BPD (among other things) is that their chest xrays always look awful. They were unable to tell exactly if  she had pneumonia. They were concerned about RSV and did a culture. Because they weren't sure what Payton had, we were on isloation.

We daily had treatments, medicine, respiratory therapy, the pulmonologist, the pediatrician, and a host of others in our room. After 36 hours, her fever broke, her oxygen was a little better, and she wasn't nearly as lethargic.

On January 15th last year we brought Payton home from the NICU with a monitor and oxygen. Yesterday, January 16th,  we brought Payton home yesterday after 5 days of isolation (do you know how hard that is with a naughty, active little girl?)  with a monitor and oxygen. Fingers crossed we can get off of it again soon.