The Reason

I finally have a chance explain why we're at Roanoke Children's hospital right now!

Lily has had a snotty nose and fever for the past five days. A few times she vomited after taking her amoxicillin. Yesterday morning, when she vomited twice more, I decided it was time to call the pediatrician to see if we could take her off the amoxicillin and try something else. When I talked to the nurse and explained what was going on, she wanted Lily to be seen by the doctor. Her pediatrician is on vacation this week so we were sent to another pediatrician who is covering for him.

We had an appointment at 6pm. We fully expected this to be a short, everything's fine, take her off the amoxicillin, etc, visit. The doctor was very nice and spent a loooooong time listening to her heart. Her oxygen saturation (in the blood) was low, however. While we were at the pediatricians office it never got above 74%. Most healthy adults and children have at least 95%+.

The doctor was concerned about her low oxygen saturation, the fact that she's had a fever for an extended period, her lack of medical history, her serious heart condition, and having Down syndrome also compromises the immune system. She said that Lily could get very sick, very quickly, and wanted to admit her to the hospital to be safe.

She didn't quite send us to Roanoke Children's by ambulance, but almost. We were able to go home and grab some stuff before driving up to Roanoke. Rob's parents met us at the hospital.

We were admitted and she was put on oxygen right away (the tubes going into her nose). Of course she hated that, so they had to put "no-no's" on her arms so she couldn't reach up and yank it off! Here's a picture from last night:

She also had a fever of 103 when she was admitted. She's been taking Tylenol for the fever and had the oxygen on all night. Her numbers have been getting better (higher), and it seems like her "baseline" is about 84%. Right now she is off the oxygen and her numbers are around 90%! We cheer every time it goes above 90 :)

Her heart catheter surgery for tomorrow has been canceled and we are waiting to hear back about rescheduling that. We *might* be discharged tonight! The latest would be sometime tomorrow. We will be getting an oxygen tank at home to use as needed, as well as a way to measure her numbers if we suspect they are low.

She was also given a strong antibiotic, but the doctors here think she just has a cold. They've done some blood work and her thyroid numbers came back high, so now they are doing more blood work to check that out. Her chest x-ray looked fine and her lungs are clear.

How you can pray specifically: for her oxygen saturation numbers to remain in the high 80s - low 90s without the oxygen. Also pray that she would get over this cold! I'm still feeling pretty awful so please also be praying for me to recover. Pray for a quick rescheduling of her heart cath surgery.

That was probably way more information than you wanted to know :). So that's where we are. Thank you for all the encouraging comments and suggestions on my previous post!