If you can't say something nice...

You know the old saying...If you can't say something nice, well, I won't finish the rest. That is kind of why I haven't posted an update in several days. Today is Thursday evening and Ethan STILL hasn't gone to school this week. The kids went to the doctor on Monday, got antibiotics, and Ethan still hasn't been able to go to school. Emily has been back for two days now. She still has a little cough, but she is doing fine. Ethan has a pretty bad sounding cough and is still battling fevers on and off. In fact, he had another fever spike of 103 last night and even had an oxygen drop last night into the 80's. That was unusual, though, because his oxygen has actually been doing very well during this illness. His cough, though, sounds very deep and very thick and is just not right. I called the doctor's office back yesterday and old them that I wanted another chest x-ray because I felt like there is something going on in there and we need to get to the bottom of it. The nurse actually had the nerve to argue with me a little bit and she told me that he just had one last Monday. I told her that I was well aware of that, but that was for a different illness and this is unrelated. His reason for that chest x-ray was for oxygen desaturations and that was before his fevers ever started. That x-ray showed signs of an asthma attack. I was explaining to her that I just brought Ethan in to see the doctor on Monday of this week for the prolonged fever and that he was put on antibiotics. He is still running a low grade fever despite being on the medicine, but my main concern was the sound of his cough. I explained that it was a very thick sounding mucus deep in his chest and that I was concerned. She asked me if the mucus could be coming from his throat and very firmly told her that it was coming from his LUNGS! I did tell her that his oxygen was good, though, and that was the strange part. She acted like a was a neurotic mother with munchhausen by proxy syndrome, but she told me that she would leave orders for me to get Ethan a chest x-ray up at the front desk. I picked those up first thing this morning after taking Emily to school and we headed over for Ethan to get his x-ray.

Now, while I am on a roll here, let me give my little complaint about the hospital. I just don't understand why they can't have a single magazine or book there for a child to look through to keep them entertained in a waiting room. I know that the hospital caters to all of the senior citizens in our community, but it is just ridiculous. They handle pediatric patients, too. They even have a "peds" floor now, yet they can't have a single magazine or book around for a child to look through???? A child really doesn't want to look through an AARP magazine!!!! Okay, moving on...

We got the x-ray done by 10am this morning. I called our pediatrician's office and let them know as soon as we were finished so they would know to call for the results and I left my cell phone as well as my home phone for them to call me as soon as they had them. When I didn't hear back by this afternoon I called the doctor's office again for a friendly reminder. I finally got a call back from the nurse around 5pm with her telling me that she just couldn't believe this, but the x-ray showed that Ethan has PNEUMONIA!!! She sounded totally shocked and said she just can't believe how quickly his little lungs just go from bad to worse. (Insert eye roll here!) She said that he isn't taking the right kind of antibiotics and that the doctor is going to call in a different kind. She finally started sounding concerned and asking me how his breathing was doing and if he was labored at all and asked me how his sats were at the moment. Hmmm, so maybe I don't have munchhausen by proxy now and my kid really is sick like I was saying!!!!!!! At least he will be getting the right medicine now!

And that leads me to my final complaint of the evening. It is now after 8pm. As of right now the medicine has STILL not been called in to the pharmacy, HOWEVER they have informed me that they have many voicemails waiting to be checked because they are swamped and haven't been able to get to them. I was told earlier by the pharmacist that IF they didn't start filling the Rx by 8pm, then it WOULDN'T get filled tonight because they were running two hours behind and they close at 10pm. I told him that that wouldn't do because my son has pneumonia and we need the medicine tonight. He basically told me where I can go. So, I have now been told that they don't know if the medicine has been called in or not. It might be sitting on their voice mail and it might not have been called in at all. I am about to make a trip to the pharmacy and camp out. They will either fill the prescription tonight or somebody at my doctor's office will pay dearly for not calling it in.

To be continued...