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Authors: Paul Daugherty
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small objects out of the crib, we laid Jillian on her back when it was time for her to sleep. We had the baby monitor on the dresser.
We also worried if her tiny ear canals would ever be clear and if her heart ventricles would close voluntarily, or if surgery would be required. We felt her head for the softness where the skull bone had not yet spread.
Jillian was always congested; her little lungs never welcomed an easy breath. We’d lay her in her crib and listen. Jillian’s breaths were a titanic struggle. They sounded like a wind gust rippling a flag. Place a paper bag over your mouth. Breathe in. It makes a racket. That was Jillian, sleeping on her back, in her crib, swaddled in a pink sleeper. A worrisome racket, always wheezing.
11/22: Saw Dr. McConville for Jillian’s congestion. McConville said bad cold. Treat with salt water drops and suction out.
Must watch feedings. Jillian lost weight: 7 pounds, 2 ounces.
We did as we were told. We put the saline drops in Jillian’s nose. She wailed. We would take a plastic suction device,nearly a foot long, that was narrow but for the rubber bulb at one end, and we’d squeeze the bulb, then gently put the narrow plastic end into each nostril, before releasing the bulb. Jillian wailed. She made such a fuss we thought the world was ending. The little girl who couldn’t wait to be born had no trouble expressing her feelings after she’d arrived. Squeeze and release. Squeeze and release. Wail and wail.
11/23: Thanksgiving Day. Still congested. Eating less. Began spitting up feedings in early evening.
11/24: Saw Dr. Jones, 4:30, for congestion. Not eating. Vomiting. Weight, 6 pounds, 15 ounces.
We took Jillian to Children’s Hospital that night, and they took a chest X-ray. They hooked her to an IV to give her nutrients and to prevent dehydration. They said she needed aerosol treatments to open her airways. And they said she needed oxygen.
The last item dried my throat. Needed oxygen? I didn’t know what that meant, except it couldn’t be good. My daughter couldn’t breathe on her own. I knew she wasn’t eating, and she was losing weight, but now she couldn’t breathe. The simplest acts of survival were suddenly complex. Kerry’s careful journaling was becoming a diary of terror. Into the tunnel we went.
Had a rough night of it. Seen by Dr. Strait. Believed to be bronchiolitis, X-rays tomorrow should confirm.
THE X-RAY CONFIRMED THE diagnosis, sending us into ten days of purgatory.
Jillian was admitted into isolation. Doctors couldn’t risk her incurring any additional infections. They placed her in a crib. Several times a day, doctors moved her into a tent in her crib and gave her aerosol treatments designed to open her airways and give her lungs some relief. After the aerosol, they suctioned, same as we did at home. Jillian wailed for them too.
Then we tried to get a few ounces of formula into our sick, angry child.
11/26, 1 a.m.: Aerosol treatments ordered for every two hours.
3:20 a.m.: Aerosol treatment
5 a.m.: Aerosol treatment
7 a.m.: Aerosol treatment
8:30 a.m.: Aerosol treatment
9 a.m.: Took 1 ounce of formula
And so on. Aerosol, suction, wailing. Sleep. Formula. Repeat.
11/27, 9 a.m.: Dr. Strait came in and said probably three or four more days.
THREE OR FOUR DAYS of treating and watching for improvement, and Jillian could go home. It wasn’t, though. It wasn’t three or four more days, which would have been bad enough. That would have meant Jillian was in the hospital for a week or more.
When she couldn’t breathe, even with the aid of a tube runninginto her nose, the nurses put Jillian into what we called “the oxygen box,” where she could take in the pumped-in air through her mouth.
The nurses spent a lot of time trying to find places for IVs on Jillian’s body. They’d try an arm, and Jillian would pull out the IV, or a vein would collapse. They tried her foot, they tried her head.
“Vein not working,” Kerry wrote in the
We also worried if her tiny ear canals would ever be clear and if her heart ventricles would close voluntarily, or if surgery would be required. We felt her head for the softness where the skull bone had not yet spread.
Jillian was always congested; her little lungs never welcomed an easy breath. We’d lay her in her crib and listen. Jillian’s breaths were a titanic struggle. They sounded like a wind gust rippling a flag. Place a paper bag over your mouth. Breathe in. It makes a racket. That was Jillian, sleeping on her back, in her crib, swaddled in a pink sleeper. A worrisome racket, always wheezing.
11/22: Saw Dr. McConville for Jillian’s congestion. McConville said bad cold. Treat with salt water drops and suction out.
Must watch feedings. Jillian lost weight: 7 pounds, 2 ounces.
We did as we were told. We put the saline drops in Jillian’s nose. She wailed. We would take a plastic suction device,nearly a foot long, that was narrow but for the rubber bulb at one end, and we’d squeeze the bulb, then gently put the narrow plastic end into each nostril, before releasing the bulb. Jillian wailed. She made such a fuss we thought the world was ending. The little girl who couldn’t wait to be born had no trouble expressing her feelings after she’d arrived. Squeeze and release. Squeeze and release. Wail and wail.
11/23: Thanksgiving Day. Still congested. Eating less. Began spitting up feedings in early evening.
11/24: Saw Dr. Jones, 4:30, for congestion. Not eating. Vomiting. Weight, 6 pounds, 15 ounces.
We took Jillian to Children’s Hospital that night, and they took a chest X-ray. They hooked her to an IV to give her nutrients and to prevent dehydration. They said she needed aerosol treatments to open her airways. And they said she needed oxygen.
The last item dried my throat. Needed oxygen? I didn’t know what that meant, except it couldn’t be good. My daughter couldn’t breathe on her own. I knew she wasn’t eating, and she was losing weight, but now she couldn’t breathe. The simplest acts of survival were suddenly complex. Kerry’s careful journaling was becoming a diary of terror. Into the tunnel we went.
Had a rough night of it. Seen by Dr. Strait. Believed to be bronchiolitis, X-rays tomorrow should confirm.
THE X-RAY CONFIRMED THE diagnosis, sending us into ten days of purgatory.
Jillian was admitted into isolation. Doctors couldn’t risk her incurring any additional infections. They placed her in a crib. Several times a day, doctors moved her into a tent in her crib and gave her aerosol treatments designed to open her airways and give her lungs some relief. After the aerosol, they suctioned, same as we did at home. Jillian wailed for them too.
Then we tried to get a few ounces of formula into our sick, angry child.
11/26, 1 a.m.: Aerosol treatments ordered for every two hours.
3:20 a.m.: Aerosol treatment
5 a.m.: Aerosol treatment
7 a.m.: Aerosol treatment
8:30 a.m.: Aerosol treatment
9 a.m.: Took 1 ounce of formula
And so on. Aerosol, suction, wailing. Sleep. Formula. Repeat.
11/27, 9 a.m.: Dr. Strait came in and said probably three or four more days.
THREE OR FOUR DAYS of treating and watching for improvement, and Jillian could go home. It wasn’t, though. It wasn’t three or four more days, which would have been bad enough. That would have meant Jillian was in the hospital for a week or more.
When she couldn’t breathe, even with the aid of a tube runninginto her nose, the nurses put Jillian into what we called “the oxygen box,” where she could take in the pumped-in air through her mouth.
The nurses spent a lot of time trying to find places for IVs on Jillian’s body. They’d try an arm, and Jillian would pull out the IV, or a vein would collapse. They tried her foot, they tried her head.
“Vein not working,” Kerry wrote in the