Preparing for a rough night

Just not feeling good today...

Hannah had an absolutely horrible night last night.  She fell asleep at 1 am and was up again at 2 am.  Finally fell back asleep at 5 am until 8 am.

She has consistently had fevers up in the 101-102 range, and thankfully Motrin does work to bring it down.   After reading up on seizures and fevers (thanks to another GD mom), I do think that Hannah was having quite a few breakthrough seizures last night because they seemed to happen when her fever was at its highest.  Those seizures also were what kept her awake last night.

Ethan had an appointment scheduled at 10:30 am with our pediatrician because he has had 3 days of fevers and cough.  I called first thing in the morning to see if they could add Hannah as well.  They asked what was going on with her, and when I told them, they told me to bring both kids in immediately.

Ethan tested positive for strep.  Hannah likely has strep too.  Apparently Cipro doesn’t fight strep, so that would explain why she is feeling so horrible even though she has the Cipro for the trachiitis.  Ethan, Hannah, and Abigail were all prescribed Amoxicillin (Abby, even though she is feeling better, this is to knock it out).  Also, they sent Hannah for a stat chest xray down the street to rule out pneumonia (results came back clear).

Hannah was just not a happy girl today.  All she wanted to do was lie on me or her nurse.  No playing, no TV, nothing.  There were even times when she would roll herself off of us to lie down on the pillow on the floor.

Things started to get scary this evening when Hannah’s nurse noted that Hannah was showing signs of sleep apnea (stopping breathing while sleeping).  We both sat there for a few minutes and counted how long her apnea lasted.  It seemed to last 6 to 8 seconds each time, and then she would catch her breath.  It was nonstop.

I started getting very nervous.

Our pediatrician happened to be the one on call tonight, and she called me back immediately.  She didn’t want us to take Hannah to the hospital just yet, but to keep an eye on her.  If her apnea lasts longer than 12 seconds at a time, then we go straight to the ER at Sunrise.   But we want to try and keep her out of the hospital because there are so many other things she can catch (last time, she got rotovirus and cellulitis after her hospitalization).

We are to prop her upright while she sleeps and keep the motrin going.  She had her first dose of amoxicillin and is due for another one in just a couple of hours.

I updated and printed out her medical card (I have a one-pager listing all her meds, hospitalizations, diagnoses, etc.) just in case we do go to the ER.  We put the inlaws on “standby” so that if we do decide to go to the ER, they will be ready to pick up Ethan and Abby.

I don’t know what to expect tonight.  I’m nervous, I will admit.  I downloaded an app for my phone that is a stopwatch so we can get a real measurement if Hannah becomes apneic again tonight.