Emerson Ann & Stella Louise: June 4th, 2008

We survived yet another trip to Indiana! The girls did pretty well with travelling and enjoyed meeting more friends and family at the wedding. While we were in Indiana, both girls started running low grade fevers. We thought they were teething.... On Monday, Stella started to get a runny nose. By Tuesday Emerson also had a runny nose, but they both seemed to be doing pretty well. We thought that they may have allergies or colds. When we went in to wake them up this morning, Emerson was wheezing and her breathing was very raspy. We took them both to the doctor to have them checked out this afternoon. Stella was dealing with a minor cold or allergies like we thought, but Emerson's runny nose had gotten much more serious. Our nurse practitioner originally thought that Emerson might have croup or an upper respiratory problem, and she tried to treat her with a nebulizer treatment. When the first treatment didn't work, she brought our pediatrician in for a second opinion, and they said that Emerson has a reactive airway (probably from all of the ventilator/infection issues from the NICU) and minor colds can quickly travel to her lungs. They gave her a second nebulizer treatment with two medications and it seemed to help. They said that it was a good thing we brought her in when we did and didn't let it get much worse. They sent us home with oral steroids and two medications to be given in the nebulizer. The steroids and the nebulizer is as good as we will be able to do at home. Our pediatrician said that if we don't see improvement by Friday, Emerson will probably be hospitalized. We are very hopeful that the medications will work and Emerson will get better quickly. Please keep both of our girls in your prayers.

Great Grandma Mary Ann holding Stella