Well, I had another visit to the ER. This time it was because I was short of breath again, rapid heart rate, wheezing cough and temp over 102. It seemed a lot like before when I had pneumonia so mommy and daddy didn't want to mess around. Grammy came over to stay with Vivi around 11pm and we headed back to the hospital. I was a trooper and it didn't take too long to get checked in.
The doctor listened to my lungs and didn't think they sounded too bad but wanted to do a chest x-ray anyway. Then, the computer system went down before we could get the results to the x-ray so we had to wait for it to come back up. When it finally did, the doctor didn't have great news. I did have something showing up in my lungs so he diagnosed me with pneumonia again and sent me home with antibiotics and more breathing treatments.
The first time I had it, the antibiotics seemed to help right away but I also had an oral steroid. Within hours, my fever and cough were gone. So, this is what we anticipated this time as well. However, that is not what happened. It was day 5 of my five-day z-pack and cough and fever were still very present. The night after I was in the ER my temp got to over 104.6. Scary but we called the ER and they said I could have a higher dose of Tylenol and Ibuprofen and more often. This helped get the fever under control a little better.
At my follow-up appointment with my pediatrician, we discussed our options and what our next steps should be. He wanted us to see a Pulmonology Specialist at Riley. It took over a month to get in, but we saw Dr. Tsangaris on May 7th at Riley and were very pleased with his time and attention.
After going through all of the symptoms and response to medications, triggers, etc. he made a fare diagnosis of Asthma. He doesn't even think I ever had pneumonia but instead they were asthma attacks. I now do a nebulizer treatment of a steroid once a day and will continue that indefinitely for now. When I have an attack coming on, I get them every four hours along with albuterol (which makes me absolutely crazy).
It is scary but we all hope I grow out of it sooner than later. :( For now, I don't let this get in the way of being my silly self!
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