Thank-you

First I'd like to say thank-you to everyone who thinks of Ally everyday. This week she was seriously sick for the first time ever. Yes, hard to believe she will be 2 in 3 weeks and she has never been very sick, but this week was it. I think it was worse for Becky and I once we realized how sick Ally was.

It started on Monday - Ally had a fever so she was unable to stay at her neighborhood playgroup.

Tuesday she seemed somewhat better, but Becky did not take Ally to her toddler Spanish class b/c Ally had a fever the day before.

Wednesday Ally had a runny nose and did not seem herself so Becky and Ally skipped community playgroup. Wednesday night we took Ally's temperature, she was burning up and breathing very rapidly. One thermometer said 102.5 and the other said 100.9. Someone has to know of a good thermometer - how can 2 give such different readings? So we gave Ally Tylenol and she slept fine all night long.

Thursday morning she still had a fever, so Becky called the doctor. The had her come right in. Turns out Ally has an ear infection in each ear. (ohhh my poor little girl) But the really scary thing is that she has a respiratory virus called bronchiolitis, which can cause coughing and rapid breathing. I was not at the doctor's office with Becky and Ally, but Becky said the doctor was quite alarmed, she had them get a chest x-ray right then. Fortunately our pediatrician's office is in a hospital so Becky literally carried Ally down the hall to radiology for her chest x-ray. They had no wait and got the results immediately. The chest x-ray was completely clear, which meant no pneumonia, just the bronchiolitis. Ally was a super trooper, did not cry once during the whole thing, until it came time to give her a nebulizer treatment, then she cried when the nurses left the room!

I think the scariest for me was hearing about it afterwards and the doctor's office told us it might get worse and if Ally seemed to have any more trouble breathing we were to bring her to the hospital immediately. So Thursday night I actually packed a bag to bring to the hospital and laid out clothes for us to wear, just in case we had to go in the middle of the night. But Ally slept very well and woke up more like her normal self.

Now we have crying several times a day as we attempt to give her all the medicine. She has an inhaler we force her to breathe in every 4-6 hours, and antibiotic twice a day and Tylenol every 4-6 hours.

Antibiotics are amazing though because on Friday she seemed much better. We brought her (yes I went too) back to the doctor on Friday, b/c the Dr wanted to check Ally's oxygen level and make sure she was doing ok. She is and so we just have to keep up the inhaler thru the weekend and the antibiotics for a week.

The highlight of the week was getting a Halloween package from Becky's Aunt Pam & Uncle Tommy. You can see how sick she was in the top picture. She loved the book, and the kitty (that looks like Carl) and would only drink from her "pupkind" cup all day Thursday.

She is imitating something in the book here.

The package came on Thursday and it was a great distraction for all of us in the midst of the sickness and concern. But we forgot about the AWESOME card until Friday evening.

This was the look of delight when Becky opened the card and it played Bippity Boppity Boo.

Then Ally proceeded to run around the house opening and closing the card and singing along to the music.

Ally also received card from Great Aunt Martha this week - it was great with a big pumpkin on it, Ally carried it around and kept saying pumpkin (or her version of the word) , it is now on display and she will point to it at random times.

Grandma Debbie sent a very cute sweater Ally is going to wear tomorrow when we go to a swanky pre-school open house, and a cute book.

Thank-you all for the cards and presents, they always mean something, but this week with our stress and concern it helped a lot to get a tangible reminder of how much Ally is loved by so many people.