Well with all the hype going around with H1N1 we knew that we'd come in contact with it soon or later. Well sooner happened. Poor little Alexandria was diagnosed on Tuesday November 3rd. It all came on very quickly, Monday she coughed in the afternoon like 4 times, not out of the norm for Alex, she likes to pretend to be sick ;) So when she woke up at 1:30 am Tuesday with a horrible hacking cough both Pat and I were sick with worry. She fell back asleep no problem but woke up at 6:00 am with the cough sounding even worse! Well Mom and Dad were freaking out! Because it came on so quickly we took her to the Lacombe hospital. Some might be saying, don't you live in Red Deer, why not take her to the Red Deer hospital. Well, Lacombe is where our family doctor is and the wait time in ER is a fraction of the time compared to Red Deer.
So we get to Lacombe Hospital and are waiting for the reception to open, the receptionist informs us since Alex has flu symptoms she has to put on a mask. Well poor little Alex looked so sad in her "way to huge adult mask". Finally we got to go to emerg where we are stuck in the back on a large examining room. The nurses were spending 5 minutes at the door of this room just getting geared up before stepping into it. We were the first of the quarantined patients, but more soon followed. Finally after waiting an hour a doc came, listened to her chest, looked down her throat and said "Just the flu, probably a bit of H1N1." and left...
Both Pat and I were thinking, a bit of H1N1?? What does that mean. So he just said, take her home, give her lots of fluids, Tylenol & Advil and sleep. If her breathing gets worse bring her back in. So we leave the hospital and I'm feeling like the worst person in the whole world! Only 2 days before we were at the shower (although the doc said she wasn't contagious then and what she had on Friday wasn't H1N1) and on Monday we seen my friend Alanna and her little girl Alyssa for like 15 minutes and Alex of course gave Alyssa a big old sloppy kiss on the lips!! I hated being "that mother"!! So I'm all worried about who's been infected and of course about Pat and I because both of us are in high risk groups. Obviously me cause of little Joey and Pat has asthma.
Well we make it through Tuesday with no huge events, just a little girl with a cough. No fever though, thank god! And we get through half on Wednesday with the same results, but then Pat comes home and Alex cough has gotten much worse and her breathing is pretty ragged! So I take her back to the hospital and it must have been our lucky day cause Dr. Keller was the on call Doctor!! Alex was so happy to see him and so was I! He checked her out and after listening really closely to her chest he says she might have pneumonia. He thought her symptoms a little to different from H1N1 to confidently say it was that. So poor poor Alex had to get chest x-rays and blood work. Both came back clear but Dr. Keller was still very concerned about her chest. He prescribed omoxycillion & Tamiflu, because it turns out, yep swine flu.
Alex was such a trooper through all of this, she smiled and tried to answer everyones questions, even though she had completely lost her voice :( Her sweet little chirp had turned into a squeaky raspy croak that can only be compared to a 70 year old lady who has smoked for 60 years! Her only real complaint was when they took blood, not a fan of that lady. And when she had to get x-rays the technician didn't notice right away that I was pregnant and I had to run from the x-ray room to get Grama, who was waiting in the examining room for us. So I had to leave my poor pooh alone with a strange woman for a full minute! Not a great minute I have to say.
This whole time poor Daddy is stuck at work, trying his hardest to leave. When a women complained very loudly that he couldn't fix her vehicle on her schedule, he informed her that his little girl was in the hospital and working on her car was not going to keep him from being with her! So Dad got there in time to be there to talk to Dr Keller. We are so very lucky that he is our doctor! He is honest and knowledgeable and all around a great guy. And when he told us what it was and what to expect it was nice to be able to trust what he was telling us and know that he is a great doctor.
So Wednesday night was a rough rough night. Pat was up with Alex all night long. She would start coughing and then couldn't breath so she would wake up in a panic. It was a very scary night for us both. The kind of night I would wish on no parent. You want to know everything will be ok but man its very hard not to think of what if? But we made it though and on Thursday she seemed to be feeling better. Her cough and her voice were no better but she was playing on the couch pretending to talk and mouth along the words to her movies. Thursday night was a little better, only a couple of wake ups and no panic attacks. Good thing cause it was Mom's night and I don't think I would have been strong enough to deal with that.
By Friday our little princess was trying to run around and jump and play. Resulting in horrible coughing fits. But a definite improvement. And today Alex woke up after an almost cough free night, even though an early crawl into Mom and Dad's bed seemed in order at 4 in the morning ;) She was talking in her almost normal voice, accompanied by the occasional squeak and rasp. Much better from the bare whisper she had been using.
So it is day 7 of exposure for Pat and I, and so far, cross your fingers, we seem to be clear. Alex is potentially contagious until Wednesday so the poor kid will miss dance and school again this week. Not sure how things are in everyone else's areas but I know in Lacombe, as of Wednesday, the only two serious cases they had seen were from a middle aged man who was sick a week before going to the hospital (we were in the exam room right next to him and he was so dehydrated they couldn't find a vein to get an IV in). And the other case was Alex, just because of her lungs. So we are very blessed that she came out just fine. And we thank the lord for protecting our family.
We hope you are all safe and healthy!
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