Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Ahhhh, Winter is Coming...

Pain Meds

We had to take Zoe back to the doctor on Saturday because she was becoming very agitated and aggressive in the evenings while repetitively signing "hurts" and pointing at her mouth. It is actually amazing to us that she can point to exactly where her pain is- she digs her finger way in the back of her mouth to point at her throat where the blisters are. Just out of interest we did a pain scale from the hospital for children with special needs that are non-verbal. Zoe scored 37 and anything above 7 is considered the child is in pain. Yikes! So off to the doctor we went. He prescribed morphine and so far Zoe has done pretty well with just two doses of that a day and a couple doses of ibuprofen. The morphine does not seem to make her sleepy so that is good.

First Cold of the Season

Unfortunately, Zoe woke up yesterday with a very stuffy nose and miserable. She has gotten a cold on top of her viral infection in her throat. Needless to say, she was pretty miserable yesterday. She does really well though, even when in a lot of pain. She still spent some time in her walker and loved going outside for a wagon ride and swinging with grandad.

I woke up at 3:30am today and instinctively knew something was amiss. I listened closely to the monitor and I could hear Zoe gasping and choking. I held my breathe and listened (this is what we do before rushing in, we give her a chance to clear herself first). Zoe did clear herself and when I checked on her she was sound asleep again. My heart was racing and I could not get back to sleep until after 5.

So I took a deep breathe and reminded myself that I have to sleep, even when I am worried about her breathing. She is bigger and stronger now and most times she can clear herself.

Sigh....winter is coming so I better remember how to roll over and fall back to sleep afterwards.

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