Running on Worry, Adrenaline, and Coffee

Just read your post, I can only imagine how tired and stressed you are! I've been there, and can't offer advice but wanted to send words of support. She WILL get better.

My heart (and a cup of warm tea) totally go out for you. Yes we've all been there and it's so unfortunate that all the care, love and hugs in the world doesn't make it better like a kiss on a booboo. My son woke up with a really weird cough today and that's his only symptom other than being tired and a little cranky. School sent him home - they've been very cautious this year and I appreciate that. So we'll watch him like a bunch of hawks circling and hovering for any signs of who-knows-what that spring us into action. The waiting and not knowing and worrying sucks. Yep, I said it. But all mamas have been there and hopefully you can feel the comfort of your motherhood tribe that is right there with you to see you through this. Best wishes.

I am so sorry!!!! I've been there, too. I know exactly what you're saying. I hope you find answers, and I hope you can find a treatment that works. Poor baby :(

Hello!! My name is Heather and I have been dealing with a sick child also for a week. He had a fever that just kept coming back for 5 days. Then last night he had a severe nose bleed and is now wheezing horribly. My son has a history of febrile seizures (when his fever spiked last time, he had a seizure) and asthma. They will not give him the anit-viral still! This is very upsetting and I completely understand what you are going thru!! The doctor tells us its most likely the swine flu. Well I want a little more than that. So from one exausted mother to another.....it will get better, it has to! I hope everything improves with your little girl and just know that I am at home struggling with my little boy at the same time. Take care and good luck. Heather B--concerned and exausted mommy

My 7 year old is currently dealing with the same thing. It actually baffled me while reading your blog because her symptoms were almost identical (with the exception that her symptoms started with stomach pain?? Very strange) and the doctors were saying some of the same things. Luckily her pediatrician is fairly old school and believes that a Mom's instinct is almost as good as law. She is being treated for H1N1 and pneumonia. I just keep praying that her 2 little sisters ( 2 and 2 months) don't get it! I am terrified at the thought of what this would look like in them!

You and your family are in my prayers

my daughter had atypical pneumonia; she didn't really display many of the signs of pneumonia other than the high fever. She didn't really have a cough, but she had a high fever for five or six days, and i kept taking her in to the ped, where they would tell me, it's just a virus. she got lethargic also, and when she started complaining of belly pain, i took her to the ER. She puked in the waiting room and it was a strange mucus-- that's the only other sign she had pneumonia. The only way we found out was through a chest film, as well, and they did that as a sort of last resort to rule out anything else. hopefully the meds will make her better quick-- my daughter was fine in about two days, although that day she came home from the hospital she was disoriented, probably from the meds they had her on. We had to watch the top of the stairs so she wouldn't fall down them in the middle of the night. We had her back in school in about a week or two, though. Good luck!!

How horrible. Nothing hurts more than not being able to make your child better. I will pray for you and your family. You are a good mom and you're doing all the right things.

Although my daughter has not had the flu this year, I can relate to the "no sleep" thing. When my 4 year old daughter had surgery 6 months ago, I was so worried about everything that I could hardly leave her alone for 5 minutes. I kissed her so many times, I think maybe it helps YOU a little too!! Hang in there! I will pray for your little girl and all the little ones out there that are dealing with this terrible flu!!

I hope they get your daughter feeling better. As a mother we don't like to see our children in pain when we cannot make it better. Our children turn to us because that is what moms do we make our babies feel better. As for the doctor who gave you attitute, for some reason there are more doctors who treat patients/parents bad because they do not take us seriously. Tell him instead of giving you attitude he should be trying to find out what is wrong with your daughter. Good luck to you both.

We took an assessment on www.feelingflu.com that validated what the doctor said - they should be vaccinated. Swine flu hits young people unusually hard.

I can relate as well, I remember my daughter struggling to breath and basically sitting in a chair by her bed watching her chest go up and down. She had a fever from something that was making her heart beat really fast and it was making her chest go up and down quickly. My nerves were just shot, I was up the whole night. I have turned in to a nut about sick people being near us and if someone coughs I just cringe. Hang in there, I will pray for you also. Somehow you will get through, they are stronger than we think...thank god.

Why didn't you take her to the ER?

I have a 3yr old with autism. Although he is verbal, he cannot explain how he is feeling, where it hurts, or anything that helps with diagnosing a health problem. So I know how hard it is when there is "nothing" you can really do. But I do also know how much all the love and prayers work (along with pediatrician and medicine!) helps your child (and yourself! May all the bright wishes sent your way also help!!! Blessings!

once you get the breathing machine with the medicine to help pneumonia.. you'll find how quickly they can breathe again.. and then blood will get working again.. take care of you too.. mama..

My prayers are with you and your family. I just received a phone call telling me that my granddaughter (Jadeen) has the swine flu. She has a baby brother at home that was born 3 months early (this year) and is at home which could be very bad if he contacts it. So even though i am not there at the home my concerns are just as deep as a mother. My granddaughter is one of my angels and I worry about her just like one of my daughters. Keep the faith, and remember mothers know when there children are sick and it is very hard to not be able to make them well, a helpless feeling. May God give you strength and comfort.

My daughter went to the ER on a monday night with ASTHMA symptoms.. 6days later we left the hospital.. she had pneumonia AND H1N1 that is why there were so confused as to why she was so sick.. I feel your pain.. and I hope she gets better soon.. I can say Ice Cold Vanilla Pedia Sure was a life saver.. along with freezer pops!! at this point she needs calories and fluids!! Good luck!! prayers are with you and your little one!!

My 6 year old started on Sunday last week after returning from an out of state wedding (i WILL blame the flight). Fever, pitiful, etc. Then the 2 year old started Tuesday night. I have not had it as bad as you, but it is complete emotional torture to not be able to help your kids. Took 2 yo. to pediatrician on Thursday....the dreaded H1N1 hex! so likely it is what she had, too. Almost forgot....i had it for a day, too! Best of luck to you. I feel your pain. As our Dr. told us..."Try NOT to listen to too much of the H1N1 news and hype. It will just scare you more."

AWW I AM RIGHT THERE WITH YOU-MY 2 1/2 HAS HAD A FEVER AND THROWING UP SINCE FRIDAY-SUNDAY HIS BREATHING WAS OFF-SO WE TOOK HIM TO CHILDRENS HOSPITAL-WAS IN THE ER FOR 7 HOURS-THEY DIDNT TEST HIM FOR SWINE FLUE-THEY DID A CHEST X-RAY-SAID THERE DOESNT SEEM TO BE A RESPITORY INFECTION-GOT A CALL THIS MORNING SAYIG HE HAD SLIGHT PNEUMOIA-I JSUT STARTED CRYING-HE IS TAKING MEDS AND I JUST PRAY HE GETS BETTER SOON-I CANT CALL OUT OF WORK B.C I NEED THE MNEY-SO THANK GOD I ONLY WORK FULL TIME AND MY HUSBAND CAN TAKE CARE OF HIM-OUR BABIES WILL GET BETER SOON<3

Its been a couple of weeks since this was first written? Is there an update on your daughter's health status? I hate reading something this frightening and then not knowing the resolution. Hope everything is ok.

My daughter was 18 months when diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. It's been life changing for our whole family, mostly for her :< of course. I wake up every two hours every night since her diagnosis to check her blood sugar so I am kinda used to the no sleep thing, but this last weekend my daughter started breathing very fast and very labored in the night. My husband and I watched her all night long in fear, we tried waking her up, tried to make her cough, give her steam shower, nebulizer treatment...nothing was helping. We took her the the ER and we were there for hours, chest x ray neg, h1n1 neg, but she had a fever, hypoxia, wheezing, rapid heart rate, rapid breathing, stomach pain and diarreah. She was admitted and given oxygen and breathing treatments and antibiotics despite the negative chest xray. Every Doc had a different opinion of what was going on, but my question is why the hell did they not give her any Tamiflu as a precaution at least!!! A little 2 year old girl with type 1 diabetes displaying sudden onset symptoms which match h1n1, even though the test was negative, the docs even said themselves that it is not that accurate. OOOO... after 3 nights in the hospital and a running total of at least 96 hours with NO SLEEP running on in PURE FEAR and the final conclusion was that most of the pediatricians at the hospital who saw her believed it was h1n1 that turned into viral pneumonia and WHAT?? the only treatment was antibiotics? There is not a worse feeling of helplessness than staying up night after night starring at my childs tiny chest struggle to go up and down, listening to every breath, and checking her blood sugar...just hoping and praying the she will be ok...I am happy to say that she is feeling better, at least on her way to feeling better... WHICH IS ALL I COULD ASK FOR!! But I have to admit I am EXTREMELY concerned that of the 5 pediatricians that saw her, they all followed the lead of the first one who thought it was bacterial pneumonia (despite NO evidence on the blood tests), even though when it was all said and done the rest of them did not agree...why did they not speak up and give her tamiflu? I just wonder...and I am not a pediatrician, but wouldn't it just be a good "idea" to give tamiflu to a hospitalized 2 year old child with type 1 diabetes displaying symptoms of sudden onset fever, cough, diarreah, hypoxia, extremely rapid heart rate and respitory rate???????????? The reason I sound a little angered is because I AM, I have read the case studies of those who have died of H1N1 and the complications of pneumonia and none of them received tamiflu within 24-48 hours of the onset of symptoms. My advice to anyone out there is the squeaky wheel gets the grease, don't just let the doctors make all the decisions, when it comes to your child you are the only one who really CARES about them, I gaurantee if it would have been one of there kids, they would have thought outside the box a little! I wish that I would have DEMANDED better care and attention for my little gal, but like I say I am just happy she is ok now! Sorry to all you other parents with sick kids, it is hard... but have faith.

My heart goes out to all even though it is broken. My daughter was following our flu (Swine come to find out) at home which seemed not to be so bad but her 3rd day caused chest pain. We brought her to ER and found the left lung to already have pneumonia. They said to keep her overnight and give her antibotics and pick her in the morning. Well, never happened, things got worse and other lung filled up. She was a heavy smoker and overweight which makes her hard to treat. The next two days were critical, life or death. It has been 7 days and she is holding her own (Those words confuse me). She is accepting 100 percent saturated oxygen. 80 percent the other. I am not sure exactly what it means. No more fevers but they keep her in semi coma so she doesn't fight care. They say it will be a long recovery, if that is true, I don't care, she will be alive. Everytime I hear that, it encourages me. I am on doubled meds just to survive each day. I swear I lost my life that day and go on each day with just hope. I feel like somewhat of a failure because I am so weak and feel I am not of much help. If she survives this, I will be with her every step that I can. I find it so hard to go through each day. I am always so scared. Funny, I look for any word that someone might say to me that puts hope in my heart that she will be okay. 3 months ago lost my sister 48 to lung cancer, father has been in ICU for two months, he is 70, intestines burst. I feel so beaten down and heartbroken. I do understand all your pain, they say god will never give you more than you handle. I hope that is true, not sure how to survive all this pain and worry. God bless you all! Thanks for listening.