Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Sarah's URTI


Ravi brought back a nasty cough/cold combo from his Korea/Taiwan biz trip (Feb 26-Mar 7).  His mother caught it, followed by Reena and finally Sarah.  Esther and I thankfully were spared otherwise it'll be a nightmare with everybody sick in the house.
 
I was giving Sarah colds medicines given by her pediatrician but after a week and half, she was not getting better.  It was Saturday when I finally took her to Dr. Hwang's clinic at Islands Hospital.  She said it was serious, with diagnosis of upper respiratory track infection or UPTI. 
Sarah underwent 2 physiotherapy sessions where her back were ‘pounded’ by the therapists.  The poor girl kept on crying and struggling but what to do, it has to be done. 
She also had 3 sessions a day of inhalation therapy using a nebulizer.  There were two medications (combivent and ?) that needed to be administered directly to her lungs, hence the need to do it in the hospital.  After a couple of days, it was reduced to twice a day.   We had to drive up and down the hospital every 5 hours or so for the nebulizer therapy.
Sarah’s condition improved a lot after just a day.  She’s now on the last leg of the nebulizer therapy, another couple more days and the doctor said she’s good as new.
Lesson of the story:  Never treat cough and/or colds as something simple.  It can really turn for the worse especially for infants/toddlers.  After 4-5 days of medications with no signs of improvement, bring the child to the hospital.

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