Well the last few days have been pretty terrible, with my baby’s breathing getting worse and worse until we went to the emergency room. Our local ED kinda sucked… they x-rayed her, checked her urine, but then sent us home with a prescription for albuterol nebulizer and prednisone. The thing is… they didn’t give me any instructions on it, and this is a 2-year-old, not an adult. Things like steroids and things like beta-2 agonists can have some pretty serious side effects, it’s not something you just want to hand to a toddler on their way out the door. So I got her into her regular pediatrician right away, and they sent us to the much better children’s hospital (part of the hospital I work for, world-renowned). We got the breathing treatments while they monitored her and made sure it worked. And it did! Although not right away… but by the end of our stay her lungs were much clearer and she was able to go longer between treatments. Also, she wasn’t retracting or belly breathing or grunting, all things that had this mom pretty scared!
The children’s hospital is really the bomb. We won’t even be bothering with my local hospital’s ED anymore, unless it’s seriously a matter of life or death to drive an extra thirty minutes. Going to a pediatric center makes all the difference in the world… the staff was wonderful with children, patient and kind to her. She even had a dedicated child life specialist whose job was to make sure she had toys, coloring books, snacks, and stuffed animals! They have a whole menu of children’s movies, so we watched the following in their entirety: Frozen, Tangled, Lion King, and Brave.
But the really amazing part, for me, was the fact that my daughter stayed on a stretcher, with me next to her, for eight hours with breaks only to go to the bathroom. She was able to use the potty when we went, but allowed me to entertain her in bed the whole time, even when she started feeling better and getting squirrely. The second nurse said she was really surprised to hear she was two… not because she’s big for her age, but because she was behaving so well! She really was. Every doctor and nurse commented on how mature she was, how sweet, and how polite (always says please and thank you). I was just super proud of her, she made her mommy so proud!
Mother of All Things 
It’s great that you questioned the first doctor you saw and asked the right questions to get the best care possible.
I’m so glad to hear she was doing better. That photo of her in a hospital gown–scary!
Glad you got her to a better hospital and she is doing better! I had issues with an urgent care misdiagnosing Wallace while we were in Chicago. They also prescribed twice the dose of antibiotics his pediatrician said was okay.