Corie - 2 Months Old

Corie turned 2 months old on February 17, 2011. Month 2 flew by fast for me. Month 2 also seemed to be a rough month for Corie. It all seemed to begin at the end of January. She started to show signs of a cold but, it got worse and worse. Her coughing spells were scary! So, at around 3am on February 1st, I took Corie into the emergency room. When she cough, she'd cough continuously for 30 seconds or so and would start to turn a deep, deep red and nearly stop breathing. She'd also throw up flem and her milk like crazy!!! They swabbed her throat to test for strep, although they were sure it would come back negative since it is rare to get strep as such a new baby. While we were waiting for results, the Dr. had Corie get suctioned so that they could run another test to look at RSV, etc. So, the respiratory therapist came and suctioned Corie but, failed to keep a sample so, Corie was tortured for nothing. The test results came back as positive for strep. They immediately put her on antibiotics and set up a follow-up appointment with Corie's pediatrician for a week later. The week following Corie's emergency room visit was tiring. Corie continued to stay pretty sick, coughed a lot, and I had to take her in to get suctioned nearly every day. I felt so bad for her and felt helpless as her Mom. On Monday, February 7th, we saw Dr. Marsden. He checked Corie out and decided to swap her for 2 tests. The first one for RSV and any other breathing illness. The second one for whooping cough/pertussis. Dr. Marsden said that her coughing spells really concerned him. He also said that clinically he had no reason to test Corie for whooping cough. However, something in him just told him to test her anyway. The results for the RSV test came that night and it was negative. I was relieved and didn't think she had whooping cough. The results for that test have to be sent to SLC though and can take 2-3 days to get results. Well, 3 days later I get a call from the health department. I guess if something like whooping cough is reported on an infant, they have to follow-up and check on the condition of the child and what measures have been taken to heal the infant. Well, the problem was that I hadn't been notified of the results yet and was now in a panic. I called Dr. Marsden and he hadn't received the results yet himself so, he looked it up and sure enough, Corie had whooping cough/pertussis. So, to treat that you have to treat everyone in the family. So, Mike, myself, Connor, Rylie, and Corie all got put on a very strong dose of Zithromax for 5 days. Dr. Marsden said we are very lucky that Corie didn't end up in the hospital. He feels that because she had been on an antibiotics for 10 days (from the strep throat) that it may have helped her to heal quicker. Also, you only have a small window to catch whooping cough and to be able to treat it with medicine. So, we caught it in time, rather than having to have it just run its coarse. Luckily, Corie is doing SO MUCH better now!!!! For a few weeks, she just wasn't herself. She was very irritable, unsettled, and just not happy. Now she is smiling more and more, content with herself, always hungry again, and her cute/fun/quirky personality is back. I'm so relieved she's improved so much and am so happy to have my sweet baby girl back!!!!