Catie got sick very suddenly on Saturday night. She had been fine; we’d met up with Cat, Tony and Elizabeth that morning for brunch, and we drove around downtown Raleigh with my in-laws, and she was fine during all of that. She took a short nap in the car, then played outside with some of the neighbor kids, and was still fine.

That night, she suddenly got really irritable and she seemed a bit congested. I gave her her steroid inhaler (Pulmicort, for those of you who know asthma) to try to fend off any pending asthma attacks. It didn’t work so well. I brought her to bed with me and Dave because she was waking up every twenty minutes or so. Around 5 a.m., I noticed she was wheezing a lot. Dave gave her some albuterol through the nebulizer, then I did it when I got up with her at 10.

Two more albuterol treatments, and at least five barfs later, we called the doctor’s office because I was worried about her getting dehydrated. (Every time she threw up, it seemed to be mostly phlegm. Poor thing was too congested to keep anything down.) They told us to bring her to WakeMed’s children’s ER, so that’s what we did. We’ve now been here 22 hours and counting.

Once we got here, they gave her multiple albuterol treatments, they gave her an IV for fluids (seriously, the IV was hands-down the worst part of the whole thing; I almost cried myself, it was so awful), they gave her lots of steroids to help reduce the swelling in her airways, and they gave her some Zofran for any nausea issues (since she had barfed so many times). Then they admitted us to the pediatric wing for the night. We finally got a room around midnight. (We first arrived at the ER around 4 p.m.)

Right now, her fever is down, she’s been drinking a lot of water and juice, and (most importantly) keeping it down, plus she doesn’t seem to be wheezing at all anymore. So I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to go home today.

Sorry this post is sort of scatter-brained; I’ve barely slept the past two nights, and I’m borrowing Dave’s laptop to write this while Catie is zoning out to “Wow Wow Wubbzy” on the hospital TV. I’ll post more as things develop.