Breathing Blah

Poor Q. On Friday morning his breathing was labored and he never ventured far away from my lap. Completely limp. Yikes! I took him in to my least favorite doctor in the pediatric practice (our regular doc is off on Fridays. This lady once suggested that I continue giving Z an antibiotic she was clearly allergic to because "We don't want her to be allergic to it.").

As soon as I got Q down to his diaper, the nurse started setting up the nebulizer. She said that she could tell just by looking that he was having a hard time getting enough air. They tested his blood oxygen and it was low. Not crazy low, but low enough. Normal is 100. His was 95. They tested his blood and he had a high white count and apparently he sounded wheezy under the stethoscope. She gave him some steroids and did a breathing treatment at the office. She said that it sounded like it could be a precursor pneumonia and prescribed Omniceff.

We left the office with the assurance that the prescriptions would be called in to Mega-Mart. I figured I would do a quick restock of the pantry, then pick up the prescriptions when we were done. So we finished up our shopping and headed over to the pharmacy. Dr. Quack hadn't called it in. Arg! Q was melting down and Z was winding up. I tried to distract them with a trip to the Christmas aisle, but my little consumerette doesn't understand the concept of window shopping. Not much fun for either of us. We made another pass at the pharmacy only to discover that the doc had prescribed all the meds for a nebulizer, but no nebulizer. Seriously? I was ready to find the woman's house and do some serious damage. We finally got everything and made it home without my having to go to jail.

We discovered that Q objects vehemently to the nebulizer. He screams and cries and I have to hold his hands to keep him from pulling the mask away. Therapy or child abuse? The line is thin. It is like trying to do inhalation therapy on the cartoon Tasmanian devil. If it didn't make his breathing noticeably easier, it so totally wouldn't be worth it. Hopefully he is on the mend.