Bronchial Pneumonia

So Mady has been awfully sick these past few days. Took her to the hospital on Sunday night with a fever of 104F (she had been running a fever for 1.5 days at this point, but it was only between 100F and 101F) and she had to go through a chest x-ray and blood work. Turns out that she has bronchial pneumonia. I feel terrible since she had been coughing for about a week, even waking herself up in the night from coughing. And I didn't do anything. I thought she just had the sniffles. I gave her Tylenol for her fever every 4 hours and that helped a bit, but having a fever for almost 2 days straight was very upsetting. I felt helpless.

This was Mady's first real illness; we've been very lucky to have such a relatively healthy child. She's never had a temperature above 99.3F and has always had a robust appetite. But here we were, down at my inlaws' house and Mady is burning up, listless, and not eating. I was so worried. The poor baby was exhausted; she actually slept in our arms while we were at the hospital for 3.5 hours, and Mady only ever sleeps in her crib. What an ordeal! She's now on antibiotics and on the mend. Her appetite has returned and she's more active and playful. It's amazing how resilient children are, but it's also quite scary how quickly they can become ill.