Jessica's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 1/3/05 -------------------- 1/2/05 10/11/04 9/20/04 9/15/04 8/27/04 8/9/04 7/27/04 7/19/04 7/5/04 7/2/04 5/27/04 5/19/04 5/10/04 4/26/04 4/20/04 4/8/04 2/29/04 2/11/04 2/2/04 1/24/04 1/13/04 12/12/03 12/9/03 11/26/03 11/19/03 10/27/03 10/19/03 10/4/03 9/22/03 9/7/03 8/29/03 1/1/01 -------------------- Jessica's Introduction

December 12, 2003

I spoke too soon! About the nothing exciting part. You may remember that I seem to be plagued with hospital/medical bills. It's a running theme contributing to my stress these days. We may possibly owe almost $10,000 in medical bills. And then we haven't even received Maddie's hospital bills from her lip incident. She had a little virus this week. Trips to the doctors and lab for her on Monday.

Emma felt left out of all of this.

She had a low grade fever yesterday with a mild congestive cough. THis morning she woke up with 102 degree fever, a cough, and overall unhappiness. So we gave her some tylenol and she perked up and ate and drank and then took a nice nap. I was beginning to think no doctor's visit was necessary. Wrong. She wakes up burning hot, she doesn't want to move. She seemed out of it. She was breathing funny, like it was hard for her to catch her breath. Like she was straining. So, I called the nurses line of my pediatrician's office and they could hear her breathing. They recommended me taking her to the er. I said no, I'll wait an hour to take her to see them. They said, "be advised you are going against our recommendations". So I thought about it and decided maybe I should take her, but how would I get her there? If she really needs it, who cares about this huge bill? It takes about 25 mintues to get there, how would I know she is still breathing? I called them back and asked them what I should do and they said call 911 and get an ambulance. Oh my! Then I started to panic. I called my friend to come pick Maddie up. THe police came. My neighbors were all looking. They put us on a stretcher. I'm crying. Emma's crying. So we get inside and the paramedic tells me that Emma is okay. It sounds worse than it is, she can still breathe and her life is not in danger. If I would like, I am welcome to transfer her to the hospital myself or to the doctor's for that matter. They said they would treat her the same at both places. So, after minutes of debating this, and after the paramedic kept reassuring me that Emma was indeed okay (she fell asleep in my arms and was breathing better) I decided to take her to the doctor's myself. I thought why incur a huge bill if it was not really necessary.

So I calmly took her to the doctor's where they took amazing care of her. Really, I was so impressed. Within minutes they had took her pulsox (sp?), temp (103.3), given her motrin, ordered a chest x-ray. They gave her some pedialyte. She was really sick. She kept falling asleep in my arms. The chest x-ray came back positive for fluid in her lungs. THey sent us the the hospital for a stat cbc and blood culture. The doctor called when we got home with the results and to check on her. I thought that was so nice. Basically she has a nasty virus but they will know for sure when they have the results of the culture. She said she might prescribe antibiotics just in case. I was given a rx for albuterol. If she has the flu they might admit her.

So, it was a rough day for us all. Not nearly as bad as my er visit with Maddie for her lip. That almost prepared me for today. That nightmare took a few days to recover from. This was more easy to deal with because I knew she would be okay. I felt confident they were taking good care of her. It turns out I made the right choice in going to the doctors because the hospital was slammed. Another hospital was diverting their er patients there. We would have had to wait forever. Oh, my friend who was watching Maddie cut her finger and needed to go the er herself. Her husband came home to watch all of the kids. She had to wait 4 hours to get 4 stitches. What a day!

So, that was my day. Keep your fingers crossed for Emma so that she gets better.

Thanks for reading.

Jess