pneumonia schmonia

It has been a crazy couple of days being parents. We traveled to Oregon over the weekend for a friend's wedding. ( This friend, some of you may remember, was the one at my wedding who put the hair extensions on his face so he had a ZZ Top beard...) It was a lot of traveling in just a few days for the whole family, but we had a really great time and enjoyed the beautiful coast of Oregon. Chloe, once again, traveled great. Slept on the plane, well behaved, didn't eat great, but that isn't unusual. She is babbling now like crazy. The therapists and I have waited for the repeat of consonant-vowel over and over and she has got the ba-ba-ba-ba down! When we returned to Florida, Chloe had a few episodes of unconsolable crying. Not any where near her normal behavior. One in which she woke up in the middle of the night and it took Evan and I over an hour to get her calmed down, just not Chloe. Then the next evening she woke up from a nap and just started screaming. This lasted for about two hours. Evan and I both felt a bit silly rushing her while she was so upset. We knew something was wrong, but without a fever, do we walk into the ER and say, "Uh my baby is crying, is there some medicine to help with this?" We finally took her temp and she had a low grade fever.  I felt like it wasn't worth messing around,  let's get her to a hospital asap. I had flash backs of the last rush to the hospital, and  that didn't turn out so well.  I still have guilt of not getting her to the hospital soon enough. It's hard making that decision to go get medical help if things aren't obvious. In Chloe's case it is probably best to error on the side of caution and let the doctors take a look. It turned out to be the best thing and turns out they can help for all that crying. Tests and x-rays confirmed the diagnosis of pneumonia. Ug! Talk about a punch in the gut! I swear I should be wearing a sign on my forehead saying, "I let my kid get pneumonia. I suck as a Mom." Of course I think she got sick in the first place from family. Then the tests, all the tests, how much does this little one have to go through?? We got the doctor asking, "14 ounces when she was born? Not, 2 pounds 14, not 1 pound and 14 ounces? This is the smallest birth weight baby I have worked on." Once again, reality check, my baby survived being born at 14 ounces. I guess that is a big deal. So, the little one is on antibiotics and they have helped tremendously already. She is doing a lot better today, and hopefully we caught it soon enough that all will be well. Poor girl! She is handling it all really well. The biggest freak out was the x-ray. She even had a delayed reaction to the shot in her butt. She is a little toughie. But no one wants to hang out in a children's hospital too long. Evan and I both left traumatized looking at all the injuries and kids with puke all over themselves. Quite an interesting experience. They even have TV's in all the diagnosis rooms. Evan and I were forced to watch hours of Disney television before we figured out how to change the channel. It was like hanging out with my nephew Frankie on a Friday night. I guess we will see how this will affect the little one's lungs...