Mutterings Of A Mindless Mommy

My daughter had her two week follow-up with the pediatrician today.  The pediatrician said she was able to get the x-ray film from the Children’s Hospital and said she definitely wants to follow-up with another x-ray today.  Evidently the pneumonia was in the right lower lobe (I thought it was left) and that the x-ray showed a pleural effusion.  The doctor said it was basically a big pus-filled sac in her lung and she wanted to do a follow-up x-ray to determine the status of the effusion.  When the doctor listened to Ava’s lungs with the stethoscope she said that she heard a lot of crackling, popping, and some other noise (I forget how she described it).  Basically the crackling is directly related to pneumonia.  Two weeks ago yesterday while at the children’s hospital the doctor said she *thought* she heard some crackling and ordered the x-ray to confirm or rule out pneumonia.  Two weeks ago today the doctor said she might have heard a little bit of crackling and wanted to know if the children’s hospital said she definitely had pneumonia or just that they thought she might have it (they said she definitely has it).  Fast forward to today - the doctor said she heard crackling all over.  So based on her office visit the pneumonia has worsened. 

She should be doing much better by now but she isn’t.  Granted she hasn’t had a fever but she’s still a bit listless and has a horrific cough from the evening through to the morning.  She will have 8 - 10 coughing fits an hour - the kind of coughing fit that is scary to listen to.  She hasn’t left my bed this entire time as I’ve been concerned so neither of us are getting much sleep.  None of these signs look good to the doctor so off she sent us for another x-ray.  We probably won’t have the results today but on Monday when she gets them she will call me and decide the course of action from there.  Depending on what the film looks like she will have us get a blood test to check for  coccidioidomycosis aka Valley Fever and/or tuberculosis.  In the meantime the doctor has prescribed her Zithromax.  She said she looks stable for the weekend as her oxygen saturation was at 97% which is good; anything under 90% is considered hypoxic.