Here, Piggy, Piggy!

It may sound like I'm joking...but I'm not! We made the decision earlier this week to keep Tater home from preschool until we were able to locate an H1N1 vaccine for her. The medicine she takes to maintain her kidney disease compromises her immune system. So, since she does NEED to be at school, we decided it was safer to keep her home. Well...that backfired! Yesterday she woke up with a nasty cough and by bedtime had a fever of around 100. A breathing treatment soothed the cough but brought her breathing to our attention. It was really fast and really heavy. We put a call into the pediatrician, who immediately sent us to the ER. Just where you want to take a child with low immunities in the middle of a flu outbreak!

So, Tater and I spent the evening in the local children's ER. We walked in with her mask already on and were quickly whisked away to a room. The only good thing about her immunity issues is that we never have to wait in the abdominal waiting room! Six hours, three breathing treatments, and some scary breathing moments later, we got the go ahead to take our H1N1 child home and medicate her thoroughly with Tamaflu. Oh, yes, we caught H1N1! So much for avoiding the germs!

Like I said, there were a few scary breathing moments. At first I doubted whether it was worth risk of taking her into the ER and if we really needed to be there. But while we were there, her breathing got much worse and the doctor (who was so YOUNG!!!!) actually got a bit panicky. Luckily, the THIRD breathing treatment snapped her back into place.

We are now giving her SEVEN medicines twice a day - 2 for her kidneys, Tamaflu, Tylenol, Albuterol, prescription lotion for her eczema, and anti-nausea medicine because she is taking so many drugs!

Oh, and the best part...last night at 1:00 am when I went to fill her Tamaflu prescription, I couldn't find any! Oh, yes, my daughter who caught swine flu because I couldn't get the vaccine now couldn't get the medicine she needed either! Luckily, at the second pharmacy I went to was able to grind down the adult dose and make her suspension formula. Insane!

We made it to trick=or-treating, but plan to rest all day tomorrow...now we are praying that no one else catches those piggy germs that are flying about!