Lily's had a rough couple of days...

Or maybe it's just Mommy who's having the rough couple of days, and Lily is just fine. At any rate...

Lily's had a clear runny nose for about 10 days now, which we originally attributed to allergies. But then she started coughing on Tuesday. No big deal at first, just intermittent coughing throughout the day. Then a little more coughing on Wednesday. And then during the night last night, a lot of coughing. Now it's not just a couple coughs here and there. It's coughing spells that last a little while, and it's a wet, yucky-sounding cough. No fever, she's still playing and acting like her normal self, but she has a cold. If she hadn't started coughing, I wouldn't have worried (the runny nose didn't bother me for the first 7 days, why start worrying about it now?). But the cough is troublesome because of Lily's lung disease.

So we trekked off to Dr. Dickerson's office this morning to get checked out, which happened to be a good day to go for a visit anyway, since Lily also managed to burn her fingers on the oven yesterday afternoon.

Dr. Dickerson agreed, so it's official: Lily has a cold, it's not just allergies. It's really amazing that Lily made it this long without catching something; thank God this is JUST a cold! Her lungs sound good, and there's just a little bit of redness in her right ear. Dr. D said we'll just watch her for now. There's not much you can do for a baby with a cold because cold/cough medicines aren't recommended at this age and size. So we'll continue with nasal saline and the bulb syringe, and if she becomes uncomfortable she can have 1/4 teaspoon of Benadryl. However, if the cough seems to get a lot worse, if she has difficulty breathing, or if she develops a fever, we'll have to get a chest x-ray to check out her lungs. No big deal for now, but Dr. Dickerson was glad I brought her in because we do need to be cautious with Lily's lungs. Yes, she's bigger, and yes, she's off of her oxygen - but she's still at risk for serious respiratory infection.

Lily's poor little fingers... I still can't believe she managed to beat me to the oven and burn her fingers while I was watching her the entire time. She was playing with the magnets on the fridge, the oven was preheating, and I was standing sideways at the counter, watching Lily while I mixed up some brownies (like I really need those). She turned around and started heading for the oven; I dropped the egg in the bowl and swooped her up as she stuck her hand in the gap between the oven door and the drawer below the oven. I can't believe she got burned this badly in the split second that her hand was touching the oven. Of course I ran cold water over it, and she stopped crying right away. She seemed perfectly fine as soon as the water touched her hand, and she went back to playing like normal, just with fat little blisters on her fingers. I figured she was probably fine and we could take care of it at home, but then I read on WebMD that it was at least a 2nd degree burn, and that's when I kinda freaked out. Lily laughed at me while I called Dusty, crying. Dusty was certain that Lily was just fine and told me everything was ok... But I decided to call Diane to see if there was anything else I needed to do. She told me how to protect the burn and let it heal, and cautioned me that since the burn is over a joint we need to be careful about infection. So all was well... And then Lily popped the biggest blister! Ahhh! So then I put one of her socks on her hand to keep it covered, and that seems to be working. Dr. Dickerson said to continue with Neosporin at least twice a day until it's healed, and keep the sock on there for three more days. If it gets infected she'll prescribe an antibiotic, but so far just regular home treatment is fine. To be slightly less dramatic and give you a more accurate picture, the burns are really very small, and it's not a big deal. Just pretty scary for Mommy.

Meanwhile, there are more reasons it was good to visit with the doctor today. Dr. Dickerson spoke to one of the UT pulmonologists regarding Lily's sleep study, and they decided that since Lily's apnea episodes are central, she needs to see a neurologist (particularly because of her prematurity). We could wait for our appointment with Dr. Jon to see if she agrees, but this other pulmonologist is confident that this is the next step that Dr. Jon would take (Dr. Jon is the one who usually handles sleep disorder cases, but she has been on vacation for what seems like a very long time). So Dr. D is getting the neurology appointment lined up.

Also, we discussed Lily's thickened liquids. Dr. Dickerson ordered a speech therapy evaluation through the Care Group so we can have a therapist's guidance in discontinuing the thickener. We don't want to stop suddenly and have Lily start aspirating again because it was really a swallowing issue all along. So just in case, we'll work with a therapist; they might want a new swallow study, but hopefully not. We'll see what they say. I don't know if the speech therapist will come to our house like Tina (OT) did, or if we'll have to go to the Care Group's clinic.

And yet another topic for discussion today - nutrition. Lily weighed 17 lbs 10 oz today. Dr. Dickerson seemed happy with that; I'm a little curious about it because she was about 17 lbs 2 oz when she had her surgery early in February. Of course kids don't continue to grow as fast as they do early on, so perhaps this small change is perfectly normal. In any case, Lily will be 15 months old soon, so it's time to start thinking about whole milk instead of formula, like I mentioned previously. So I'm waiting for a call back from the nutritionist to discuss Lily's weight and what she wants us to do regarding milk. She will probably recommend some Pediasure in addition to whole milk.... We're looking forward to stopping formula because of the cost. Hopefully Lily will be happy about the switch too!

So once again, we've got a lot of irons in the fire. I'm praying that we can get all of this stuff sorted out within a month or two.