Thanking my lucky stars

So, Ellie had a cold last week. No biggie. Just a runny nose and sneezing mostly. She got through it in a few days.

Then a rather nasty cough reared its ugly head last Friday evening. Woke her up out of her sleep. And I heard her calling for me. First time that's ever happened. It brought me to tears.

She suffered all last weekend with this terrible cough. I did as the doc suggested during the last cold with cough and gave her the Triaminic strips and Benadryl. It didn't really seem to help. That damn cough was nasty.

All the kids at daycare were just getting over it, so I knew how bad it was. Two of them ended up with croup. I was dreading she's get there too.

Luckily she didn't. It went from a mean, deep, hacking cough to a regular cold, phlegmy cough on Monday. I thought she'd get better in a few days.

Wednesday, Teri noticed she was wheezing a bit. Not good. Yesterday morning, when I went to give her her cough medicine at daycare, I decided she NEEDED to see the doctor. Sure, there was no fever or loss of appetite through this whole thing, but the wheezing was definitely prominent yesterday morning. And luckily Teri works at the doctor's office, so they squeezed us in pretty quickly.

Luckily, there was no fluid in her lungs. The wheezing was simply her breathing through the phlegm in her throat.

BUT her ear infection from last months seems to have never really gone away. It's inflamed again, so she's on an antibiotic for that. The nurse practitioner who saw her also told me to STOP the cough medicine and Benadryl. So we had 2 doctors previous who said to use them, and now a nurse practitioner from the same office who told us not to. A little confusing, but I decided to give it a try.

After we left the doctor's office, we went to Target to get her prescription filled, and voila! Nothing like a little shopping to cure a little girl's illness. Stepping into the store was like magic. Her cough stopped, and she actually started smiling again. Ellie definitely takes after Mommy.

She's doing loads better today. We stopped cough meds and Benadryl, like I said, and went with the saline nose drops and vVc's baby rub instead. I also made a decision to not give her milk because I know how it makes MY cough so much worse when I'm sick. She drank juice all yesterday, and I noticed the difference right away. We'll do juice again today and then maybe start back on milk tomorrow. She'll get plenty of cheese and yogurt for calcium in the meantime.

I'm just so glad she's feeling better. I was so worried yesterday. So worried I even prayed, which I don't really do on a regular basis.