Quick background...
Tink was born at 31 weeks and had to be ventilated for 12 hours, after that she did really well.
Since she's been released we have been to A&E almost every month, often a couple of visits in the week and we've not had many months off. She has had Croup 3 times and Bronchiolitis 2 - plus the times the doctor has said "we don't diagnose croup/bronchiolitis more than once" (don't know why, feel free to tell me if you know).
Last couple of days she has been off colour, nothing specific that you could put your finger on. Wednesday she kept asking for people I had to ring so she could talk to them, but she just wanted to listen to them talk, including my sister who she never goes to we saw her same day and she wanted cuddles! Thursday constant stream from the nose. Had a lot of restless sleep.
Today she woke early and refused to eat the cereal she had asked for, mostly had the milk she's only eaten yoghurt and cheese today, hardly drunk. She started the day looking like she had a heavy cold but during the day she got worse. She got the quilt from the spare room and climbed on my lap with it (she had a temperature too, guess how sick I felt!) she's slept on me all day, I've hardly eaten or been to the toilet because she won't let me put her down. Her breathing has gotten more and more difficult and she has put a lot of effort in.
I called the GP this afternoon, normally a little late for same day but they did fit me in. She had all the indications of a poorly child (as GP put it) that needed hospital. He got her triaged over the phone so when we got there they just had to do her obs, classed her as yellow (urgent case) and rushed her through.
I asked the GP what's going on with her, he said they don't diagnose asthma this young, but she is a bad asthmatic, that every virus (this weeks mild cold) goes straight to her chest and leaves her poorly.
It took two nebulisers to bring her down - you would have thought she was possessed the way she screamed and threw herself around, she had so much drool and phlegm down her front the doctor thought she had spilled the neb stuff out. Fortunately after that she picked up. After three hours (been 7 hours since I left for GP) they checked her, she had gone bad again but not as bad. So we did ten puffs and come home.
We've been sent home with blue and brown inhalers and steroids. She has to have the blue inhaler every 4 hours and the brown twice a day starting Monday (when she's not on the 4-hourly puffs) when she will be on it permanently.
I asked the doctor what's going on and she said it is because of her being prem and intubated, also because I was having a rapid progression so she didn't have steroids before birth. It's all added up to asthma.
I'm so fed up, I'm sick of seeing the inside of that hospital! Daddy didn't turn up until gone 9pm. He's gone to bed and I have to stay up till 3:30 so she can have her next dose. Apparantly I'm unreasonable asking him to help because he's been at work all week.I've obviously not had a hard week (judging by the state of the living room) staying up with Tink and putting up with her tantrums all week. He didn't say that, but he got annoyed when I suggested he did the inhalers so I could sleep and the look on his face when we came in! I'm actually keeping the place better than when he's here full time and I end up spending Monday catching up with the weekend and Tuesday covering Monday. (there's so much more I could say about all this but not enough room!)