Bulb syringe...

...Friend or Foe?

Poor little Iva Lou is still not over her "end-of-Summer, beginning-of-Autumn" cold. It is no fun. She started out with it on August 28th. Derrick ended up staying home from church with her because she was up all night coughing. Her and I ended up in a steamy bathroom most of the night with the shower going on full blast. It was scary because she sounded croupy. Being the paranoid nurse that I am, and having worked with sick, RSV kids before, I even listened to her lung sounds. Course, rhonchi with expiratory wheezes (don't I sound so smart?! I would be more proud if they were coming from someone else's lungs, not my daughter's). I could tell she was not feeling well because she was wanted to be cuddled while we sat in the bathroom; she is not a cuddle bug usually, especially at night. She likes her space. But we cuddled and she went back to sleep while Derrick and I half-slept, half-listened from our room (we even kept the monitor by our bed, which we normally do not do cause we just leave it downstairs). She slept well and woke up happy and wanting to eat. She ate well and had good, wet diapers. Good signs. So we've just been waiting it out. That is the one good thing about being a paranoid nurse; I know what to look for. I think if I was not a nurse, we may have ended up in the ED Saturday night. But even though her lungs and cough was HORRIBLE, she was eating. Monday night was the worst. I worked all day, but Derrick said she was happy and playing all day, just still coughing. She likes to growl (the videos in the last post are proof!), so that just irritated her throat. Monday night, she was coughing so hard she had a projectile vomiting episode and kept coughing up mucous from her lungs. Definitely scary. But, that was the worst of her cough. I thought she was getting better this week, but woke up yesterday with an ultra-runny nose! Poor thing. I try my hardest to keep it wiped off, but she is constantly sucking her upper lip because of the constant drip (haha I know you all love the visual; that was really just to gross you out Mom!). I have also been using the bulb syringe like crazy. Hence, the reason for the title of this post. It is my friend, but Iva's foe! It really is her friend too, but she hates it. And dislikes me for using it. Unfortunately my awesome snot-sucker (google it), is not working out so much for this cold.

Oh well, I guess we will wait this out too. Common colds are supposed to last 10-15 days right?! Only four more days to go...