What happened to Ava?

I know this is meant to be a sewing and crafting blog, but people have been asking me what happened to Ava. This seems the most effective place to put it. So if you only want to read about sewing, I'd skip over this post.

As Mixie mentioned Ava was very sick a couple of weeks ago. On Friday the 6th June she was having a bad day. She was short of breath and wheezing, but she wasn't actually having an asthma attack. She was still running around the house playing, despite out best efforts to keep her still. I was giving her Ventolin, but it didn't seem to be having any effect, so at midday I took her to the Doctor. He diagnosed her with Bronchitis and said she could have Ventolin hourly to get her breathing under control. I put her to bed at 7pm, but was concerned that she was grunting in her sleep. We decided to take her to the hospital just to make sure she was okay. They took her straight through and put her on oxygen. She seemed to recover really quickly, but they wanted to keep her overnight for observation. We went to the ward to settle in for the night.

Unfortunately Ava's little body wasn't getting better. They kept increasing her oxygen and she kept getting worse. At 2am they transferred her to Intensive care and put her on a BiPac (sp?) machine. At 10am the Doctors arrived from Brisbane, Ava was intubated and we were flown in a helicopter to Royal Children's hospital in Brisbane. She spent another 24 hours in intensive care before she was transferred to the ward. We then spent another 7 days in hospital, because she was slow to come off the oxygen. It was strange because every time they tried to turn the oxygen down, her oxygen saturation levels would drop too low, but her breathing would be fine. It was hard work trying to entertain a 3 year old that felt and looked fine, but wasn't allowed to leave the bed!

Ava on her second day on the ward

We're back home now and it is honestly like nothing happened. She has been fine at all her follow up appointments. Its a little confusing because we are still not quite sure what was wrong with her. The paediatrician that treated when she was sick at the local hospital sent a letter to our GP saying that nothing about her breathing, chest sounds or xray suggested asthma, yet she tested negative for all bacterial infections. They are thinking Asthma combined with a viral chest infection now. She is on an asthma preventor twice a day for now. The important thing is she is better.

After all this I just have to say I am so glad they we live in Australia and that we have the free health system that we do. I can't imagine that helicopter flights and intensive care stays are cheap. I will definitely be making donations to the hospital during their annual appeals.

Back to sewing now...