Happy Down Syndrome Awareness Month!!!
So, for the past several days this Mama has been sick.. fever, chills, and all! I actually got it from my daughter. And that leads me to my post today. Kloey is always getting sick. If there is something in the air, something being passed around, this child is going to get it. This is not to scare anyone away from down's children but if I'm being honest, this is what happens. Last winter she contracted whooping cough three different times. THREE TIMES!!! Honestly, it was exhausting and took a toll on us for sure. After the first time that she got whooping cough she stopped sleeping through the night and for the next 9 months got up at least three times in a typical night. It only got worse when she got it the second and third times.
Just a couple of weeks ago she contracted something else and I'm not even entirely sure what it was. Jordan and I thought that she was teething and apparently we were wrong. We kept shoving Orajel in her mouth and I guess we were just waiting for the constant wailing to subside. Kloey had never really had Orajel before and she will never have it again. This is why...
She was already having a hard time breathing because of whatever virus that was making her sick but then we nearly killed her with the Orajel. There is no exaggeration there. The benzocaine in the Orajel was closing her throat and swelling her tongue. As you can see up here, her oxygen was low enough for them to put in an oxygen tube and crank it up. She was so dehydrated that she needed an iv. And here's the kicker... we tried to tell the doctor that her tongue was swollen and that we were concerned about it. We asked him to look into it and even told him that we had given her Orajel, which was new to her. He just looked at me and said, "her tongue is swollen more than normal you mean?" Understanding his meaning I said, "I know she has Down syndrome but her tongue is not normally swollen. It's not normally sticking out of her mouth". He just looked at me as if I was some poor soul unwilling to admit the truth and walked out of the room without another word about it. I mean, REALLY?!! We got home that night and gave her more Orajel and while she was screaming uncontrollably and really really scaring us to death, Jordan said a prayer and literally right after said, "we have to stop giving her orajel". He Google'd it the next day and almost all of her symptoms were linked to a benzocaine allergy. Boy was I mad (more like livid) at that doctor. We stopped giving it to her and the next day she was 50% better. After being scarily sick for a week... this was a huge sigh of relief for all of us. We've just now started to sleep again.
I am reminded over and over again that as Kloey gets older there will be times when I'm going to need to really really fight for her in different instances. This was one of them. Maybe I should have been more persistent but I was exhausted and thought that maybe my mother's intuition was wrong. I don't think I'll doubt that again. Much love all!!!
1 comment:
You know your child BETTER than ANYONE...NEVER doubt that! If you don't like what a doctor has to say or not say, get another opinion. My brother cried for 10 MONTHS STRAIGHT! Like hard core crying ALL THE TIME. My mother told the doctor several times that he was always crying and fussy. The doctor told her not to worry she was just a new mom. (My sister was the first born...so uh NO! She's had experience). One day while changing his diaper she noticed something a bit disturbing. He had a protrusion where it should not be! She rushed him to the doctor's to find out it was a HERNIA!! They had to do surgery on the poor guy. Guess what??? He QUIT CRYING!!! So, as you can tell doctor's don't know it all. But I'm pretty sure mother's do. :) Love you!
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