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Thursday, March 31, 2005

Day 41 - Sniffle Cough

Mika has a cold..or croup. The doctor couldn't be sure which. I thought Mika was having tummy trouble, like maybe some reflux or something because she would gag a little bit and then cough yesterday. I guess it was phlegm though. She was sneezing a bit yesterday too, but she's been sneezing since she was born. Started in the hospital and hasn't stopped.
Anyway, last night was horrible. Her nose and sinuses were totally stuffed up and she was gagging and coughing. I don't know what's with the gagging. Of course, at the doctor's office, she didn't cough or sneeze let alone do the gag thing because that would be too easy. Daddy thinks that she gets some fluid or phlegm up from her lungs that triggers the gag reflex. I hope that's all it is. It scares the poop out of me. Mika opens her mouth as wide as she can, sticks her tongue out, and looks like she is trying to throw up. She stops breathing during this and turns bright red.
We bought a nasal aspirator to suck out the snot. Turns out what we were using was an eardrop syringe. Mika got a prescription for croup medication, an anti inflammatory. She also got dimetapp for infants which has worked pretty good so far in relieving her nasal congestion. In addition to all that, Mika has saline nasal drops which we have yet to use. Between the snot sucking and pill and dimetapp doses, we figure we should give her a bit of a break. I had put a warm mist humidifier in her room, but the recommendation was a cool mist, so we swapped it out. Other recommendations were to open the freezer and let her breath the cold air or feed her a cold drink of formula or breastmilk. Both recommendations are contrary to what new parents are typically told, but each one is supposed to relieve some of the inflammation and soreness in her throat.

My poor baby. I stayed awake during most of the past two nights. The first night out of paranoia that she would get sick to her stomach and choke and last night out of paranoia that she would do that gag thing and stop breathing. Tonight i will just stay up with her because I feel awful that she is sick.

To her credit, she has behaved wonderfully considering.

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