Fun with Charlotte: More appointments

On Friday the 12th we headed into Boston for the day and our visit to Children's Hospital Charlotte had 2 appointments scheduled, both were appointments that are typical to have once a child has been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. With EDS, children and adults can have issues with their eyes or their heart and the connective tissue surrounding them. EDS is a connective tissue disorder and there are so many other things that could go along with it, but luckily so far with Charlotte she has NOT had any issues with them. We had our first appointment with Opthamology at 10:45. She wasn't feeling very well, low grade temperature, a bit of a cough, and we knew she was starting to get one of her 2 year molars. We knew going into these appointments that she was probably going to have a tough time. She had to have a vision test, which she wasn't too thrilled with, but made it through with flying colors. Then she had to have her eyes dilated and boy that was not fun AT ALL!!! She was so pissed off when we had to get the eye drops in. After all was said and done, she has no problems with her vision or her eyes. After our appointment there we met Dave's best friend Peter across the street at Bertucci's for some lunch. Our next appointment was set for 1:30 with the cardiologist. We headed back to the hospital for our appointment and made it there a little early. By this time she was getting pretty slap happy and tired and her cough seemed to be getting worse, but we plugged away. We got into the appointment, first she had an Echocardiogram, which went well. She got to lay down and watch some Wiggles and just relax. After the Echo was over we headed back to the waiting room for a little while to wait to have her EKG done. That was quick and she was pretty upset by then because she was so tired. She passed both tests with flying colors and for being sick, tired, teething she was a trooper and did pretty well with all of the waiting. The cardiologist appointment went from about 1:30-5:45 when we finally left the hospital. The doctor took awhile to get to us and while we were waiting for her in the exam room, Charlotte finally gave into her exhaustion and fell asleep. The appointment went well and we loved the cardio doctor. We don't need to go back to see either of the offices until next year! Thank goodness!! :D
We left the hospital and Charlotte was so excited to get a balloon for being so amazing while we were waiting. By the time we were leaving, Charlotte's cough was starting to sound worse, but we headed out and finally had a chance to stop and get something to eat. She was in such a great mood for being tired and not feeling well.
We got home and decided to give her a nebulizer treatment that we had left from last year when she was having issues with her coughing, etc. We did that, watched a little bit of Toy Story 3 snuggled up in our bed, and then put her down for what we thought was the night. She started coughing more and more and got to the point where she was choking and couldn't catch her breath. :( That was so scary! She was fine if I held her sitting up and her laying on my chest, so after a few times in the rocking chair, I brought her into our room and we both fell asleep for a little while. I felt much better having her in bed with us because her coughing was so scary. We woke up around 1am to her really coughing and having such a hard time catching her breath, so we decided it was time to take her to the ER. Turns out she developed croup. Great!! :( They gave her some steroids and some saline to use in her neb instead of the albueterol which didn't help much.
We got home and gave her a saline neb, cuddled in bed for a bit and then put her back to bed. Saturday she seemed to be feeling better and her and I ventured out to the Harvest Festival on our town common. The cool air was so good for her. She wasn't herself, but she enjoyed seeing the fire trucks at the open house at our fire station. We wandered around a little bit too. She napped for almost 3 hours and we played in the leaves a little bit. This morning she woke up and she seemed to actually being feeling worse. She pretty much sat on the couch all morning, ate only a little bit, and then went down for a nap after a nebulizer with some albueterol. She's been coughing a lot, but not as bad as the croup cough. She's still running a fever, so we may be staying home tomorrow.

The pictures were posted out of order, but oh well!