Energy Crises

I have tremendous respect for pneumonia. The illness manifests in many different ways, but it always kicks your butt.   Maggie is recovering from her latest bout with this bug now and she is doing fine. Until she isn’t. It just sort of sneaks up on her and saps her energy. She will be mid sentence  with  her talker and suddenly fall sound asleep.

 Pneumonia ordinarily means  horrible coughing and a high fever.  In her countless past episodes of pneumonia, I’ve certainly seen both more than once.  She has neither this time around. Her chronic cough is a little worse than usual, but not terrible.  Her usually low temp is more in the normal range, but nothing I would call a fever.  This time it is all issues related to energy and stamina.

Maggie was exhausted for a week before I took her to the doctor on Monday. I assumed she was adjusting back to a full school day after two weeks of Christmas vacation. By last weekend she was needing a little oxygen during the day, which is unusual. That little bit would reenergize her for  several hours.  I sent her to school Monday warning the nurse that something was off.  After a couple of hours the nurse called to tell me that she needed oxygen constantly or her oxygen levels would drop.

That was my tipping point. If she needs that much help it had to be a pneumonia. It was time for the doctor.

Now we are on day 5 of antibiotics and Maggie is much better. I tried to send her to school yesterday but she didn’t last more than a couple of hours.  She’s a wee bit stronger today, though and she went back to school this morning. She has already lasted longer than she did yesterday. Now theres a  three day weekend, so she should be in good fighting shape by Tuesday.

Then we’ll get back to the wind sprints.