A word on pneumonia

So. Pneumonia. Yeah.

Sorry, guys, it's been a long few days and I'm not feeling all that articulate, although with my eyes feeling like they've been lined in sandpaper, YOU WOULD THINK I'd be sleeping right now, but I'm not. Because it's 6:47 a.m. and at 7 a.m. I have to wake Zoey up yet again for another go-round with her Albuterol inhaler that she hates and which will leave her feeling wired and jittery and still wheezy for at least an hour to follow.

Should I back up?

Wednesday afternoon, the cold Zoey had been playing around with for nearly a week seemed to take a turn for the worse. We came home from the library and she picked listlessly at her lunch, started running a fever. Eventually the fever cranked up to 103 degrees. Her cough got worse. We camped out in my bed, she with the laptop streaming endless rounds of Mr. Rogers and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I with my new book. I figured she just had a bug. It would run it's course and in a couple days she'd be better.

Thursday. Yesterday? Yes. Yesterday. I left work early to come home and relieve Bryan, so HE could go to work. Zoey began complaining that her ear hurt. Ah, an ear infection! Right? So we trundled off to the pediatrician's office, where we spent NEARLY TWO HOURS with a very competent and very sweet nurse practitioner and her nurse practitioner-student-sidekick who both informed me that, while Zoey's ears looked red (not infected), the real problem seemed to be her lungs. Decreased breath sounds, wheezing, what sounded like snap-crackle-popping each time she took a deep breath. We stayed for two rounds of breathing treatments and, when her lungs still sounded junky, left for the medical imaging office down the road for a chest x-ray.

We went to Target to pick up her Albuterol inhaler and two new Dora books because seriously, people? Zoey took two breathing treatments AND an x-ray like it was nothing. 'Bring it' seemed to be her motto. Totally worthy of two books. Okay, so they were both inexpensive. But whatever.

The nurse called later to confirm that it is, in fact, pneumonia. She reinforced how important it was for Zoey to use her inhaler EVERY FOUR HOURS for the next 24 hours, and to follow up back at the pediatrician's office tomorrow. (Today? Right. Friday. Right?) I went back to the Target pharmacy (where they are beginning to know my name) for a $75 course of antibiotics.
Returned home to find my kid bouncing off the walls, post-Albuterol-and-Tylenol.

The thing about Albuterol is that it makes you feel all keyed up. Jittery. TOTALLY WIRED. I know this is a side effect, and yet, I was still dreading getting up every four hours to wake my child and make her jittery IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

Let's just say the Albuterol didn't disappoint.

We were all sound asleep at 11 p.m. when the first alarm went off. Zoey was most displeased at being woken from her recent crash off the Tylenol high, and I can't even say how much of the inhaler she ACTUALLY inhaled. Must have been enough, since we were awake and fidgety until almost 2 a.m. Zoey couldn't get comfortable and I couldn't doze off, either, because a) I was trying to sleep sitting up with her in my lap because that seemed to relieve the ear pain and b) I was too paranoid about listening to her wheezy little breath sounds. I'm sure we nodded off right before 3 a.m. Which made the 3 a.m. alarm all the more pleasant. BUT we were back to sleep by 4 a.m. And when my alarm went off again at 5:00 to remind me to get up for work? Right. Not happening. I re-set for 6 a.m., called in sick, and went back to bed. But didn't fall back asleep (obviously), because here I am. Typing away without my little bug resting in her makeshift nest beside me.

I am hoping for plenty of rest for all of us today, that Zoey's follow-up appointment is uneventful, and that by tomorrow, she is feeling much better.