Annika's First Trip to the ER!

Very early this morning (4am) Annika woke up crying. I was on the couch sleeping (that's another story). But I had heard her crying and heard her go into the bathroom. I went to check on her (now she usually wakes up in the night to use the bathroom, than goes right back to bed (how do I know this?? I hear her run back and forth as our room is right below parts of both of those rooms). But she usually doesn't cry. When I got into the bathroom she was drinking water from the faucet "like daddy" (tipping her head and drinking it from the stream of water). She than told me that her throat hurt and she was making a funny noise. I had thought well she has a frog in her throat (by the noise she was making). I told her try and clear her voice and she came to me and I rubbed and patted her back. Than I realize that the noise she was making wasn't that noise at all but was her gasping for air. I ran down to get the lamp from our room (of course I can't find a flashlight anywhere), so I got the lamp and looked at her throat. Her airway was almost completely blocked by her tonsils.

I went and got David up and asked him if we need to take her in. He said to call the hospital and see if there was anything we could do for her. The nurse said bring her in (she was a bit worried that she was gasping for air) and said that the cold air might help some.

So off David and Annika went. David called me and told me that she had calmed down some and that the cold air did help. That she was breathing easier.

They got to the ER and the doctor ran a strep test on her (came back negative), she wasn't running a fever or anything like that. So he looked again and said both her tonsils and adenoids were very enlarged.

The prognosis....tonsillitis. They didn't give her anything in the hospital (the swelling went down some on it's own)

She was just fine when she got back from the hospital at 6am (wouldn't go back to sleep so she laid on the couch and watched a movie and was up and jumping around after the movie.

They gave her some medicine to take for the next 5 days (the first day it was 5 ml and the 4 days after 2 ml). The side effects basically flu symptoms. :( She has the medicine once a day on an empty stomach. She had her first dose at 9:00 am she was up and jumping around still playing with Donovan, no problem. By about 10 pm she felt like she was running a slight fever (I believe it's gone now and it wasn't much of one), but she was complaining of an upset stomach. We watched another movie (it just might be a movie day). ;)

She's now napping (didn't argue at all when I told her it was nap time and fell asleep faster than ever). She must just be wore out.

We head back to the hospital after her meds are all gone and go from there. Sounds like if she has one more flare up they will take the tonsils and adenoids out.

I took this picture about 2 hours ago (a bit blurry but you can kind of see the back of her throat and how swollen it is). It was a bit worse on the left side (looking at the picture) when I laid her down for a nap but she didn't say anything about it.



She has a raspy voice right now and wheezing and coughing a bit, but doing much better!


And because no one wants to see a picture of the inside of her throat without her cute face! Here's a picture of her in a skirt that a sweet lady I met made for her! It's such a fun twirly skirt, but an upset stomach stopped the twirling for today, but I'm sure it will get much more twirl out of it in the days to come!