Thanksgiving Day

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving. It is so hard to believe that it is already over.

We ended up having an eventful day. Harlie had a terrible Wednesday night. Her oxygen saturation levels were so low. They are normally low anyway (around 75-85 - normal sats for a healthy person is close to 100). But I had to turn the oxygen concentrator up to 4 liters of oxygen to keep her above 70! That is a BAD sign. I had to suction her all through the night. And she was working very hard to breathe - while sleeping. I knew what all that meant.

I had to take her to the ER.

It certainly wasn't worth waiting till Friday to get her some help. And I knew that if I did that, her pediatrician would send me to the ER for x-rays anyway, so why wait? I figured the ER had to be pretty slow on Thanksgiving Day. Plus, with her jaw reconstruction looming ahead (now less than 2 weeks away!!!) the sooner she gets meds, the better. Plus, she was acting miserable. She had coughed up so much gunk during the night that it was all in her hair - and she had thrown up and that was in her hair, too (it's so great to be us) so I had to put her in the tub. She normally loves her bath. But, when I put her in, all she did was sit there and cry these big silent tears. It was so sad.

So, we went and they took x-rays and they said that she had pneumonia in her lower left lung. That's a new location for her. The past two times she's had pneumonia it was in her right lobe. Which they say could be caused by aspiration. Which terrifies me. That is a problem I REALLY don't want her to have.

Anyway, they put her on some more nebulizer meds, which she gets four times per day (she normally gets two meds twice a day), plus antibiotics and some Tamiflu, just to be on the safe side. And we were home in time for Thanksgiving dinner. My whole family came over - which totals 20 people. It was crazy. But good. I was so glad they let me take her home so we could all be together.

And she is so much better already. I was able to turn the concentrator back down to 1 liter last night and no suctioning during the night! YAY! So, hopefully she'll be fine from here on out.

Her jaw reconstruction is Wednesday, December 9th. Yikes. It is SO close now. And there is so much to do! We definitely have to take the kids to see Santa before then. There is NO way I can take her after her surgery - that would be terrible! She will look terrible for two weeks!

I know I should have focused on what I am thankful for for Thanksgiving. But, I just didn't have that kind of focus. And honestly, I am thankful EVERY SINGLE DAY for so many things. A day doesn't go by that I don't think of how blessed we are in so many ways. Of course there are days when I feel like if it weren't for bad luck, we'd have no luck at all. But in the end, I know we are lucky. Having Harlie has changed the way I think. I will never take talking, breathing or eating for granted again.