Trachiitis, ER, again

Just two weeks after Hannah finished her last round of Cipro for trachiitis, it seems to have snuck its way back into her system.

She was doing okay during the day yesterday, but then about 4:30 pm she started burning up, becoming lethargic, really junky, tachycardic, and her respirations were really fast and shallow. By 5:30 pm, we made the decision to go to the ER again because she was in really bad shape.

They took us immediately into triage and then into a room. Even though we had given her tylenol 90 minutes earlier, her core temperature was still 102.6. They did a chest x-ray, trach aspirate, and took bloodwork. Fortunately her chest x-ray was clear (no pneumonia) and her bloodwork showed a higher than normal WBC (but not terribly high) and CRP.

It was trachiitis again. They prescribed us Cipro again since it does seem to work for her and discharged us. Again, they suggested that perhaps we should keep her overnight in the hospital, but the ER doc we had last time (who was not our doc this time) recommended we take her home since “we know how to take care of her” and that she “trusts us to come back to the ER if something isn’t right.”

Reality is we do have a mini-hospital in the house. There isn’t anything they could do overnight in the hospital that we can’t do at home. And believe me, if something isn’t right, we will be right back to the hospital faster than you can imagine.

What is getting scary about these last two times is how fast trachiitis creeps up on her and knocks her out. Within just a few hours she went from being normal (for Hannah) to a lethargic, choking, and burning up little girl.

We caught it early this time, thank goodness. We apparently need to be hypervigilant when it comes to getting her medical care if these symptoms come back. Even though my gut told me what it was, I needed the confirmation of the chest x-ray and blood work to confirm it and the antibiotic to fight it.

She did okay today. Exhausted, still junky, but in much better spirits.