Pneumonia

Breath in. Breath out.

Tzviel came down with pneumonia last week. He's asthmatic and that had us pretty worried. He started medication and we tried keeping him as much at a distance as you can within a family.

Thursday afternoon, Tehilla woke up from her nap with a fever. I put in a call to our family doctor and we both agreed that Tehilla should be brought in to be checked Friday morning and have a chest xray.

Our regular doctor was not in Friday morning,  so we saw the on-call doctor. I won't get into too much detail but he basically pegged me as an overprotective mother and didn't want her to have a chest xray because he saw no symptoms to suggest pneumonia.  It really wasn't his decision as Tehilla's doctor had requested it. In the end, there was no x-ray technician on Friday.  He ordered blood work which came back clean. He gave me a patronizing speech about not over medicating my child because of some fears. I bit my tongue.

Well, all Shabbat Tehilla's temperature stayed and got higher. It wouldn't break all Shabbat day, so I finally called our (new) cardiac nurse, Doreen. She and I talked about it and felt that as long as her oxygen level was normal, which it was, to keep trying to reduce her fever, but that she must be seen after Shabbat.

So, the same on-call doctor checked her. Her breathing was heavier, and there was some problem in her left lung. He started hemming and hawing over whether to send us for a chest x-ray in middle of the night or to start antibiotics right away.

I cut in very sternly and said, "Our cardiologist should be consulted and make the decision." He agreed and of course our cardiologist insisted she start antibiotics immediately after explaining how severe pneumonia in a child with HLHS can be. We then checked her oxygen level which was at 74-75. Her baseline is 80-85.

She's now sleeping and I'm pretty angry that I was patronized, while she could have been on medication 30 hours ago.

She needs to be checked everyday until her fever is completely gone.