January 2012

Gemma was discharged from the hospital in mid January. 

It was an eye opener to us to see how a cold could end up causing Gemma so many problems.  Basically what happened was that the secretions and gunk pooling down in her lower lungs were sitting down there and not able to come up.  This also caused her not to be properly ventilated as the air wasn't able to fully expand her chest, and hence causing a collapse in her lower left lung. 

Within a few hours of being admitted to Children's Gemma was already on oxygen, they had to increase her ventilation settings, as well as her doses of nebulizers, and provide her with aggressive chest physio.  Within a week Gemma cleared up but unfortunately began vomitting which caused her to aspirate milk into her lungs.

The aspiration was really surprising considering that we hadn't seen one before.  It took everything out of Gemma, she was lathargic for a few days and wasn't herself at all.  Her heart rate and resp rate increased drastically and stayed high for a week.  I kept being told not to 'watch her numbers' but I couldn't help it, I knew it was a sign something was wrong.  Fortunately within a few days Gemma started looking more herself and then it took another week before she was back to 'baseline' in order to go home. 

I had been lecturing everyone for a year about hand washing and being careful about getting sick but didn't really know what exactly I was protecting Gemma from until this Winter.  It was really difficult going from having a child that looked so well to being really sick.