Winter Cold

While I was out of town last weekend, Aubrey came down with a cold. It started on Friday with croup. That seems to be the trend for her these days. The last time she had croup, the doctor gave us some medicine to use for future "croup attacks." So, David gave her the medicine, and the croup-y cough went away. For the rest of the weekend, she just had a "normal" cold. David mentioned to me when I was on my way home on Monday that he thought she might be wheezing. When I got home, I listened to her breathing, decided that she was, in fact, wheezing, and started breathing treatments.

We continued the breathing treatments Tuesday, but when she woke up on Wednesday, I just didn't have a good feeling. She was still wheezing, and my mom intuition was telling me that she should be sounding better after a day and a half of breathing treatments. Plus, she was just super fussy and not herself. So I called the doctor and made her an appointment for that afternoon.

By the time we got to the doctor, I had convinced myself that it was probably a waste of time and that they would tell me to just keep doing the breathing treatments. I would rather waste time going to the doctor and have them tell me she is fine than stay home and miss something, though. It turns out that it wasn't a waste of time -- my mom's intuition was right. Aubrey had a double ear infection, and she WAS still wheezing pretty bad. I was really surprised about the ear infection. She has not had an ear infections in a VERY long time, and I wasn't expecting that. So her doctor put her on an antibiotic, an oral steroid (for the wheezing), and told us to continue the breathing treatments. Poor sick baby!

The good news is that I can already tell Aubrey is improving. She was MUCH happier today than she was yesterday, and her breathing sounds a lot better. I'm so glad she is on the mend! I'm also so happy that she doesn't mind her breathing treatments at all. As a matter of fact, I think she kind of likes them and insists on doing them herself. Have I ever mentioned that she is super independent?? ;-)

I think it also helps that her nebulizer just happens to be a panda bear. She thinks that is pretty cool. When it's time for a treatment, we tell her it's time for the panda bear, and she is happy as a clam! I don't know how these treatments would go if we just had an ole boring nebulizer! ;-)

I have to say, taking both kids to the doctor by myself was quite an experience! Jude still needed his 6 month checkup, so I went ahead and scheduled that for the same time. Whew, that was crazy! Aubrey was sick and grumpy, and that just made everything more difficult. She spazzed out when it was time to weigh her, but I couldn't really do much about it since I was holding Jude. She also freaked when the doctor had to look in her ears. I had to lay Jude on the table, lay Aubrey next to him, and pin her down. It wasn't real fun, and I was sweating by the time we got out of there! I think next time, I'll be getting David to meet us there! :-) I'll post about Jude's checkup soon.