Thoughts and Musings

Prednisone Rachel

I awoke this morning to the sounds of an asthmatic howler monkey...and no, I haven't suddenly been transported to the wilds of some foreign jungle. Although . . . it has been a bit of adventure.

Rachel's full dose of prednisone finally kicked in.

The doc, worried about how bad Rachel was, hit her with a z-pack and 40 mg a day of prednisone. 20 in the morning and 20 at night. For the first couple of days, the illness kept the side effects under control, but as she improved...

At 5:45 this morning, she screamed at the top of her lungs, rattling the windows. Apparently, the strange cursing noises from Mama's bedroom amused her - the scream was followed by hysterical giggles, then a juicy fit of coughing. She hacked, spit, and swallowed...then screamed again. More giggles. Another coughing fit. Rachel, in one of her "I will not be ignored" moods.

Even though I had found my glasses, I still ran into the doorframe. (Mind you, I had only gotten 5 hours sleep, since the last treatments and suctioning had happened around 11pm. By the time I unwound and got ready for bed, it was almost 1am.) Still, an early start for a child in her condition is a good thing, even if Mama is weaving around the room like a drunken cheetah trying to focus on prey. And the maze of the wheelchair, the tubes on her Vest and aerosol machine, the metal legs on the hospital bed, and the couch, convinced me that I need either to move to a bigger house or to sleep in steel-toed hiking boots. I completed her first treatments and meds by 6:30. I put in Beauty and the Beast and lay back down.

Sleep? Well...she is still laced with prednisone. Then there's the little matter of the next door neighbor's burglar alarm.

Life with Rachel. After all, how many people do you know who can have an adventurous Sunday morning without ever getting out of their jammies?

Posted by ramona at May 4, 2008 11:20 AM