A trip to Vegas and a sick, sick baby

What a past month or so! Seth finally made it back from Vegas and we are enjoying our nights again as a family of three! I am really going to try to make this story short for you though. I left for Vegas back a couple of weeks ago on a Thursday to see Seth and spend some time together to celebrate our 6 year anniversary. It was a much needed break for me! We got a ticket from a friend flying standby, which I was very unfamiliar with. Apparently, flying standby means that we are non-revenue passengers that are at the very bottom of the priority list. So, we get on our flight headed to Chicago where we are going to catch a flight to Vegas. Well, we missed our flight because of bad weather so decided to try for the next flight to Vegas. Apparently due to the bad weather, most of the planes were diverted and we began thinking that we might not get on a flight that night. I was in a panic mode! After 8 hours in the airport in Chicago, we finally got on the last plane with NO seats available heading for Vegas. We left out at 12:00 midnight our time and made it to Vegas at 4:00am our time 2:00am Vegas time. I was totally exhausted after being up for almost 24 hours. I kept having feelings that something was not meant to be after the trip out but I was so excited to see Seth that I forgot about what it took to get me out there. Well the next morning, Seth and I called his mom to check on Katelyn and she told us that she was sick during the night. She was vomiting and I was all the way across the country! I was, again, in a panic! There is no other feeling worse than your child being sick and you being far away to where you can do nothing about it! Seth and I did our best to have a good time without worrying too much about our sweet, sick, baby girl. So, we continued to check on her and we were excited to hear that the vomiting had stopped and she was catching a cold. I hate to say that I was excited about a cold but my thoughts were that it would be nothing that could not be handled and that she would probably be much better by the time that we made it back. Well, each day the cold seemed to get progressively worse. On Sunday, my sweet friend Abbie picked her up from Seth's mom's house to watch her until I could get home on Monday to get her. In the mean time, snow was falling in AL, which in turn meant cancelled flights for Sunday. I began to get back into my panic mode. I knew that Katelyn was still sick and I was hoping that she was going to get better but I knew that I wanted to get on that flight for Monday so that I could get home to my baby girl. So, by late in the day Sunday, we received the bad news that 12 of the 15 Southwest flights into Birmingham had been cancelled which meant that ALL the flights on Monday were booked. So, as I am in tears, completely freaking out to Seth, he proceeds to get online to find me a ticket home on Monday. Bingo..........he found a ticket alright and it was $800 for a one way ticket home. So, we decided that was out of the question for now and that we would just wait to see what we could find to get me home on Tuesday. On Monday morning, Abbie calls me to tell me that she thinks that Katelyn might have an ear infection. So, I call the doctor and get some medicine called in hoping that it will make Katelyn feel better. By Tuesday morning, Katelyn was much worse to where Abbie had to send her little girl to a friends house to care for Katelyn. To say the least, I was hysterical!!!! Seth's flight left out that morning and I could not get out until that night since again, I was flying standby. By this point, my mother was on her way down to Montgomery to pick up Katelyn and get her back to the doctor. Well, Mom got her to the doctor and after an x-ray, they sent her home with 3 prescriptions. Seth finally got to my mom's house to get Katelyn around dinner time that Tuesday but she still did not seem better. She was struggling to breath but we were under the assumption that this must be normal since the doctor had seen her like this a few hours earlier. Well, my flight came in around 11:45pm that night and I got home to see her and she looked awful! I put her in bed with us to watch her throughout the night and she seemed to be gasping for air. First thing the next morning I called the doctor to ask them about her breathing and they told me what to look for when she is in respiratory distress. So, I watched her throughout the day and she seemed fine. Well, on Wednesday night, I noticed her chest caving in again when she was breathing, which she had done the night before. So, I called the nurse on call and she told us to take her to Children's ER immediately. So, Seth and I loaded up and headed downtown to the dreaded ER!!! When we got there they put an oxygen cord on her toe to check and it said 80%. The nurse was a little shocked and said that it had to be wrong so she pulled it off and gave her a new one. Again, it read 80%. The nurse was in complete shock and said that she needed to be on oxygen ASAP. They started her on breathing treatments every hour or so for 45 minutes. It was miserable! She screamed and it literally took Seth and I both to hold her down and give the treatments. After the 4 treatments, her oxygen was the same so they had to admit her to the hospital. We had to stay for 5 days, 4 of which she was on oxygen. We found out that they think she may have asthma but definitely asthma like symtoms when she gets a cold. It was a complete roller coaster of a ride for us and a crazy 2 weeks! We are SOOOOO thankful that she was taken care of and that we got her to the hospital in time. We know that God had his hand on our sweet baby while we were gone and while she was in the hospital. It was one of those trips that just felt like it was not meant to be but we strongly believe that everything has a purpose. We now know how to treat Katelyn when she gets sick since we will have a nebulizer at home to give her breathing treatments. So,here are some pics from her stay in the hospital and our trip in Vegas! Sorry it was such a long post but so much happened during those two weeks! Thank you for all our visitors while we were in the hospital, meals that were brought, prayers that were prayed! We could not have made it without any of it! We are so greatful for such wonderful family and friends!