A Pruetz Family Blog Song

To the tune of Frère Jacques

Where is Erin?
Where is Erin?
She's with Grace!
She's with Grace!
We've been in the hospital
Wi-ith Pneumonia!
Ain't that great?
Ain't that great?

To clear this all up, Grace has pneumonia, not me.

It all started on Sunday when we drove to Yoakum to visit Todd's family. His sister was in town for a couple of days before leaving for a multi-month trek to Senegal. We were all geared up for a fantastic family day, but it was obvious that something was wrong when Gracie cried the whole way to Yoakum. And not just crying -- screaming. She was so unhappy, but we just chalked it up to her being a bad traveler. Our trip home was exactly the same, although she did finally scream herself to sleep.

Monday morning rolled around and Todd was home for a doctor's appointment. When the girls woke up and we brought them downstairs, we both stared at Gracie for a few moments, wondering if we were really seeing what we were seeing. She was gasping for air, using her stomach and chest muscles to breath. Her breathing seemed awfully fast, as well, with it getting up to as high as 60 breaths per minute (it should be between 25 and 30).

I gave her a Xopenex breathing treatment and when that didn't help, I called the pediatrician who brought us in immediately. She examined Grace, did another breathing treatment, took a pulse-ox, did a chest x-ray and determined that it was pneumonia, caught very early. We did another in-office nebulizer treatment and were sent home with instructions to call if her breathing didn't slow.

Both babies took a good, long nap that day and didn't wake up until after 5:00. I got Gracie up, noticed that her breathing was still really rapid and did another treatment. No help, so I called Cheryl (her pediatrician). She told me to do another double treatment and call her back if I didn't notice an improvement.

Sure enough, despite a huge dosage of the inhaled medication, Grace's breathing never slowed and my call to Cheryl resulted her in sending us to the hospital just a couple of miles from our house.

We got there, settled into our room (where I even had a bed!) and got Gracie all taken care of with an IV in her hand (she just loved that), and bloodwork taken (another treatment she just adored). People were in and out of our room until nearly midnight, doing breathing treatments, getting her antibiotics started, etc. We finally fell asleep, but were interrupted multiple times for vitals to be taken, meds to be administered and breathing to be monitored.

Tuesday was more of the same, with a visit from a pulmonologist who took long family and personal histories and a trip to the awesome play room where Grace played a little too hard and pulled out her IV tubing -- three times. The pulmonologist ordered another chest x-ray to make sure that the infection hadn't spread and the rest of my time was spent trying to keep my little spunky girl happy despite her being tethered via IV.

By the end of the afternoon, my kiddo had managed to pull her IV completely out of her arm and her doctor determined that she'd gotten enough IV antibiotics and could take the rest of her meds orally. We were free from the IV!

I talked at length with Cheryl about what the pulmonologist had to say about Grace (and Faith, for that matter, since they're identical) and where his concerns lie. She never said the words, "Sweat test," but I saw it coming from a mile away. According to the pulmonolgist, Dr. Patel, Grace was looking good, but her history of breathing problems, bronchiolitis and RSV made her a fantastic candidate for long-term lung problems. Not surprisingly he asked to see both girls for a full work-up within the next two weeks.

We got a little more sleep that night and Grace woke up on Wednesday morning all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to play! The playroom opened at 9:30 and we were there, knocking to get in.

Unfortunately, the oral and inhaled steroids made my little girl quite the mean one and after a few toys were strategically thrown around the room, I had to take Grace back to our room -- something she was not thrilled about.

I got to talk to Cheryl again on Wednesday morning and what I knew was coming was finally said -- "We need to do a sweat test on both girls to rule out Cystic Fibrosis." I knew it...I just knew it. Truthfully, I'm not extremely worried about it, but reading into the symptoms of the disease, I do see the need to do the test. The girls display quite a few of the most common symptoms. For more information about it, click here.

We got a visit from one of the San Antonio Delta Society's animal ambassadors -- dogs that visit sick children in the hospital. We were visited by Newman, a Sussex Spaniel, who made our day. My sister laughed at me because she thought I got more out of the visit than Grace did. I think she was right!

Shortly after Newmie's visit, Grace was discharged and we were able to leave. We were home by about 4:30 yesterday afternoon with a page full of instructions and medications. As we were leaving, I told the nurse, "Thank you! See you next week when I'm here with the other one!"

So far, so good, though. Grace is doing really well and Faith has nothing more than the cough she always seems to have. Devin, too, seems to be fine, so we're crossing our fingers. Only the coming days will tell us what kind of fun we are up against.

So now, to put it all on virtual paper, here is what we are doing:

1) Seeing a pediatric GI specialist to figure out why my girls eat like pigs but don't gain weight
2) Seeing a pulmonologist to figure out what we can do to keep these persistent infections from being so...well...persistent.
3) Seeing the pediatrician weekly to make sure all is working the way it should be working

Despite all of this, I feel very, very lucky. A friend of mine gave me a Willow Tree Angel of Miracles figurine that has served as a reminder to me that all of these problems with the girls' health are not problems -- they are miracles. I'd much rather be battling these problems than mourning the loss of my unborn twin daughters. I'm trying to see it all as opportunity and I look forward to the day when I am telling my grown daughters about how they were always sick when they were little, but grew up to be such healthy adults.

I have some catching up to do on my blogging, so I'll try to get more in in the next couple of days. Hang in here with me, though...I'm trying! :)

Me