Roid and albuterol alert!

Here's a happy, IV free Afton after a rough couple of days.

Explanation: Thursday afternoon at 3:45pm Afton achieved a new milestone by climbing on the toilet, opening the wall cabinet, pulling out her hairbands, UNZIPPING the bag-that I thought was safely stowed away, and swallowing three of those tiny bright colored death traps. I heard her coughing and found them in a puddle of mucus. Immediately following this incident, she began coughing every minute and was struggling to breathe. As soon as the boys got home (about 5 minutes later) I packed them up, brought them to their Aunt Robin's-Josh was working that night-and raced to the ER. This one was not a pediatric ER, like the one I always go to when we have our routine ER visits, and was a big waste of time. They did a chest Xray, listened to her breathing, and sent us home saying she was fine. That night, she/we didn't sleep at all. She had severe labored breathing and Josh was concerned that she might have pneumonia. We made it until 8am, then went immediately to the pediatrician. I told them my concerns and we were sent to the hospital with the primary concern of rubberbands in her airways and a possibility of walking pneumonia. Oh, I almost forgot, she was also immediately vomiting everything she swallowed. The first and most scary thing that they did at the hospital-well, after the IV which took only two tries instead of six like when she got her tubes in her ears-was a bronchioscopy (little tube with a camera that goes down the throat and through the airways). They had to put her under for the procedure and we couldn't be in there, so we had to sit and try not to worry after they told us all of the worst case scenarios of the procedure. BTW: Josh was with us and was able to give her a father's blessing. The boys were at school. Sooo, they found no rubberbands, but DID find infection and her airways were swollen. They immediately started her on a steroid and antibiotics. Josh went home to get some rest before the boys got home from school. Up until this point she had been super lethargic and just whimpering. After some rest we had a visit from her daddy and brothers. She was given a breathing treatment and medicine for her fever. Once everything kicked in her system, she went into HYPER SPEED! I spent the night chasing behind her with the IV cart. It was tiring, but hilarious. Those roids had her ENERGIZED! She kept singing "E-I-E-I-O! Duck! Quack, quack!" and of course, she kept talking about Ian and Ayden. Around 9 or 10pm they suctioned out her nose with the super powered mucus vacuum, she got MAD, then passed out until 6am. WOO-HOO! She got some much needed sleep, but I did NOT. Her IV machine beeped at us all night, and the respiratory people kept coming in to give her breathing treatments. It was rough for me, but she snoozed through it all. Saturday morning, she had improved tremendously, so we were able to go home!! The first thing we did was BATHE! Then we got her prescriptions filled and we all took naps, except for Ayden. Late that night, my friend, Lindsay came over so Josh and I could go out to eat. We were SUPPOSED to go to a wedding that would have taken up most of the afternoon, but the short dinner date after the boys went to bed was a good enough break. On Sunday, I stayed home with all of the kids for Afton's obvious reasons and for the boys to have some quality time with their momma and sissy. Afton is like a crazed chimpanzee. She even sounds like one. She's driving us bonkers, but we're glad she's on the mend. She's still wheezing some, but hopefully that is on the mend. We'll have a follow up visit on Wednesday to know for sure. So there you have it. That's what we've been up to for the past few days and that is the life of Josh and Stacy with three asthmatic children. If you read through all of this, give yourself a pat on the back.