Deja Vu All Over Again

I think the quote above is fitting as I believe that Yogi Berra would appreciate my daughter. She's the only child that can go into the hospital, smiling at anyone who looks at her and yet still ends up getting admitted. Yup, that's right, Madeleine's back at Children's hospital and while Kirsten and I are disappointed, we're not too upset and think it was a wise decision. Madeleine has been fighting a cold since Sunday afternoon. Its nothing too serious-- its just a cold with the requisite fevers, snot, and general crankiness and irritability that characterizes most colds. The difference with Madeleine is that given her diminished lung capacity and propensity for getting really sick really fast, the doctors were concerned that the cold could rapidly progress into a full blown pneumonia.

Despite this concern, most of the data points to quick recovery from the cold and ideally no actual pneumonia. Blood tests are the first indicator of a bacterial infection-- pneumonia is typically a bacterial infection-- and the blood test taken this morning showed no signed of bacteria-- the white blood cell count was normal (6) and there were no new bands forming. (these "bands" can be an indicactor that the body is gearing up to fight a bacterial infection.)

While this was good news, the doctors were still concerned as we've had to increase Madeleine's oxygen support-- she's up from .5 liters to 3 liters-- and they were also somewhat concerned by the X-Ray they took this afternoon. The X-Ray wasn't definitive but it showed the potential for a pneumonia. Given the fact that Madeleine has run fevers intermittently for the last three days coupled with the increased oxygen support and concerning X-Ray and it ended up in a close call that resulted in us admitting Madeleine to the hospital.

In the end, we're hopeful that she won't develop pneumonia and will recover from this cold in the next few days. In the event that she does develop a pneumonia, Madeleine's in the best place to catch it and we'll likely catch the pneumonia in its early stages, thereby making it easier and faster to treat. In summary: this isn't a major step back and ideally won't be a long admission. We just chose the safe route to make sure that Madeleine doesn't develop a really ban pneumonia.

While the hospital admission is quite a downer, we do have good news: Madeleine has put on weight and now weighs 13 lbs 6 oz. Madeleine was released from Children's on January 3rd, weighing just under 10lbs meaning that in less than two months, Madeleine has gained nearly 3.5 lbs. She's still a tiny little thing but she's rapidly approaching the chubby little girl that we're all expecting.

That's all for now. I'll of course do a better job of posting information as we learn more in the hospital. We're hoping to be home soon and have told the doctors that we expect to be eating her birthday cake in our house next Tuesday!