A visit to the ER

After dinner I thought, "What are we going to do tonight?" Holly had left for spin class and Lilly and I had an hour and a half before bedtime. Lilly had been coughing a little bit and has had a runny nose for a few days and she suggested doing "a penguin" (an albuterol nebulizer treatment) that usually opens her up and makes her feel much better. I was surprised she suggested to do it. I think partially she wanted to sit and read a couple chapters of Matilda.

After the treatment we sat down on the floor to do a few puzzles. Lilly seemed to be nodding off as we did puzzles (usually she's jittery and wound-up post-nebulizer) and then she started breathing really rapidly and hard, especially for just laying on the floor. After a couple minutes of, "What should I do?" I decided to toss her in the car and head to urgent care or the ER. I think in the back of my mind I was thinking we'd get halfway there and she'd be fine. If anything it had gotten worse in the 5 minute drive to Mercy.

We checked in and were seen a few minutes later. As we waited to be seen Lilly started breathing more and more normally with smaller, intermittent spells of rapid breaths. She had a fever and has a history of respiratory illnesses so they wanted us to stick around for a few hours to monitor her oxygen saturation and heart rate. Holly showed up after getting the, "Everything is OK, but....." call and we spent a couple hours together waiting for the Tylenol and Motrin to kick in.

All-in-all the evening was a few minutes of worry followed by a few hours of, "We probably could have waited this out at home." I guess you never really want to chance it.

Here's a picture of Lilly being a little trooper: