The house of sickness

After dealing with Ava being sick for over two weeks I've been looking forward to getting back to our normal routine. I can't really complain though, she's been sleeping in (til 9, 9:30,10 and even 11 one day,is she 3 or 13 years old?) or about the few brief moments of cuddling we (I) enjoyed while Vi napped.

Our sicky girl
Overall fever,cough and runny nose or not she still acted like her normal cheerful, high energy self the majority of the time. Of course it makes me sad, nervous, concerned etc when Ava is sick, because it doesn't happen all that often. However I never get too worked up because it is never that serious and I know she'll be just fine and recover, fully.

Posing Tinkerbell

Sisterly love, sharing their germs
 

Now my daughters have traded places and Violet is the sick one. It started this week with just a slightly congested nose. By Wednesday she was throwing up mucus, and starting to cough a little.

For the last 3 days I've been helping her fight a fever, running after her with a tissue and hand sanitizer,and doing an extra treatment a day to make sure this congestion doesn't settle into her lungs. I've tried teaching her to spit into a tissue when she has these wet, hacky coughing spells, but she just puts her mouth to the tissue and blows. I've sat up with her during the middle of the night counting her respirations, forcing her to drink, holding a cool rag on her hot little forehead.

Big girl holding her own mask
 

As few times as Ava's been sick, so far the times Vi has been sick are even more rare. So when it does happen, and since she is a toddler with a lung disease, I worry, a LOT.Yesterday as her cough  started to change, (it is now like a 20 second hacking smoker's cough) I grab whatever is in reach to hold up to her in case she spews mucus all over me again and I cringe. Not because I'm grossed out, but because I see this possibly foreshadowing our future. I get this pit in my stomach that this COULD one day be her "normal" cough. Yet I've somehow let myself believe my child will never sound like that, she'll never be that sick.
Today after talking to the on-call Pulmonologist we took her to the ER.

All worn out
She was a brave little girl and endured a throat culture and a chest x-ray, but not without a fight. A few hours later, we got the diagnosis: Bronchitis. Sputum culture will take a few days of monitoring to confirm what's growing in her lungs, if anything.In the mean time antibiotics for 10 days, continue breathing treatments every 4 hours and Tylenol/Motrin as needed for her fever. We should see the fever break and an overall improvement in the next 48-72 hours, definetely looking forward to it!

On our way home, hospital admission averted!
Thanks for the prayers!