Day 18

Just a little update on how we're doing over here.

Kaitlyn is still coughing.

We started doing a megadose of vitamin C (Sodium Ascorbate) to hopefully help lesson the symptoms (coughing and congestion).

I'm hoping that her cough is the typical 21 days, but it could go on for months. I'd like to hope that we're on the downward slide and won't be seeing the coughing fits that we saw the first week again.
We just keep watching her and her breathing. I worry at night that she'll get some of the thick mucous stuck and won't be able to breathe and I won't hear her.
Whopping cough with a baby means constant worry.

I feel so incredibly thankful that we haven't had any issues.
My SIL mentioned that 20 -40% of babies under 3 months old with pertussis die.
I don't know how we got so lucky.

Or maybe I do.

Yesterday I gave a talk in church about coming to know our Father in Heaven and one of the points I talked about was being able to recognize God's hand all around us.

I talked about how day to day things become more meaningful when we stop to think about the role that God has played in them. How much is just coincidence and how much is God?

For me, I can't help but wonder if a well timed ear infection played a role here and was more than coincidence.

When we got back from our Christmas vacation, Kaitlyn was miserable. By Wednesday, January 6th I noticed discharge from her ear. She was started on a 10 day course of amoxocillan that day.
She finished her antibiotics on the 16th of January.
Her coughing started just 12 days later.
Seeing as pertussis' typical incubation time is 7-10 days (but can be longer), she probably was exposed within days of finishing her antibiotic. She very well could have still been on the antibiotic when she was exposed since she could have been exposed up to 21 days before she started showing symptoms.

It may just be that having that antibiotic in her system made the pertussis bacteria less severe.

I think it is truely miraculous that we haven't had any issues despite Kaitlyn's young age and not even having her first vaccination for pertussis in.
I don't know if the antibiotic she was on before or while exposed to pertussis saved her, but I do know that God is a God of miracles and mercy. I thank Him every day that Kaitlyn is doing okay.