Lily's Medical News

Well, this cold has been hanging on for quite awhile now, but I think Lily's on the mend. The cough is intermittent, not continuous, but it continued to get worse instead of better. We got a prescription cough/cold medicine last Friday, which helped to loosen up some of the congestion, but the cough still got worse over the weekend. She was having a really hard time with solid foods, and of course formula made the yucky stuff in her throat even worse. Sunday night was the worst - Lily's breathing was labored while she slept, her oxygen saturation was in the 80s instead of 90s (good thing we bought the pulse ox, huh?), and she kept waking herself up with her coughing. Mommy didn't get much sleep at all, and even Daddy was awake periodically throughout the night. Lily slept through the desats, but she was really upset each time she woke up coughing.
So Dr. Dickerson ordered a chest x-ray Monday morning, along with a CBC and a blood culture. The tech printed the x-ray film for me, so I was able to see for myself and take the image to Dr. Dickerson instead of just the radiologist's report. Lily's lungs definitely have fluid in them, but the x-ray looks about the same as the last one that was taken. Granted, she was still on oxygen then, but we've certainly seen worse x-rays. The radiologist's report indicated bronchopneumonia, but Dr. Dickerson says it's hard to say how much of that was already there because of Lily's chronic lung disease and how much is new, from her current cold.
Because of the way the cough and congestion gets a little better and then gets worse again, Dr. Dickerson suspects allergies may be at least part of the cause. But on the other hand, this could really be pneumonia, and her lungs are suffering from this illness, not just the preexisting lung disease. So she covered both bases by prescribing a five-day course of Zythromax, along with over the counter children's Claritin. Lily was a LOT better the very next day after starting the new meds, and has improved each day since then. No more waking up during the night, and the cough is seldom. Still sounds bad when she coughs, but now it's only once or twice every few hours.
Due to the difficulty with the solid foods, though, Dr. Dickerson also ordered another swallow study. So we're going to do that tomorrow. Next week, we have Lily's Tiny Tots follow-up with Dr. Evans, a visit with Dr. Jon in pulmonology, and we're also going to see the neurologist next week. Busy week.
The neurology appointment had me a little worked up at first, but my friend Kristina, who is a pediatric nurse, assured me there's no cause for alarm. See, we were initially told that we couldn't get in to see the neurologist until mid-June. Even Dr. Dickerson couldn't get us into their schedule earlier - the neurology nurse told her to fax Lily's medical records to them, and the neurologist would review them and decide if Lily needed to get in sooner. So she did, and then yesterday they called to say that Lily has an appointment next week. So my first thought was that the neurologist saw something bad and wanted to get Lily in right away... But Kristina said that's not necessarily the case, so I guess I'll wait until they actually have bad news before I get too excited.
So that's the news with Lily's health... Just a lot of doctor visits coming up, and she seems to be getting over her "bronchopneumonia."