End of the School Year Blues

The only unfortunate thing about the end of the school year was that Kalina was sick. It started the Friday before school ended.   If it was not the end of the school year, she would have been home with me.  I knew she would be devastated if she missed the end of the year so we let her go (and I had already planned on being there the last few days so she had two sets of eyes on her).  She spent her last two days of school being uncommonly quiet.  While her classmates were singing and dancing, she snuggled on my lap or Peggy’s lap.  The odd thing was Kalina kept saying she felt fine, even though she did not look great. 

By Tuesday night, Kalina had a persistent cough and was needing CPAP and oxygen at night and she was wheezing on and off.  I called the on-call ENT nurse Wednesday morning.  While we were at school with Jadon she retuned my call.  I explained the situation and she said she would get back to me.  Dr. Inglis, one of her ENT doctors, called around 1 PM.  We decided it would be best if he saw her at 3 PM.  We are so grateful we live near Children’s and can make the drive in about half an hour. 

Usually, I have some idea of what is happening to Jadon and Kalina when they are sick.  This time, I was stumped.  They are both prone to getting granulations in their airways, but usually some bloody secretions accompany that.  Kalina sometimes gets granulations above her trach.  Those impact her speech but not her breathing.  She had not had an audible wheeze in who knows how long.   Since her symptoms were not consistent with anything usual, I was very happy to be getting a medical opinion.

Dr. Inglis saw her and we went over her symptoms in person.  By that time, she has also developed a consistent, audible wheeze.   Her did a scope of her airway and saw nothing.  That was great news and ruled out granulations.  Since her airflow to talk was fine, we ruled out upper airway granulations as well.  The wheeze was concerning so Dr. Inglis called Dr. Debley, their pulmonary doctor.  After going over everything with him, we decided on a course of steroids and an inhaler (I honestly don’t recall if Kalina had ever used an inhaler before this). 

Kalina remained tired and wheezy until Saturday.  She still needed CPAP and oxygen at night.  Her sats were also low during the day so she used oxygen them too.  Not our usual girl!  We were so happy when she started feeling better on Saturday.  She was still not 100% but she had definitely turned a corner and was finally on the mend. 

Kalina is not feeling great but you would never know with that smile.