Sunshine and Sickness

"Autumn, the season that teaches us that change can be beautiful." --Heather A. Stillufsen

Every autumn I find myself almost anxiously looking forward to the changing of the leaves and once it finally begins I once again fall in love with autumn.  It's a little dangerous for me to be driving around because I'm so entranced by the beauty of the world in autumn that I sometimes forget to keep my eyes on the road.


This morning as I was cleaning in the kitchen I looked up and was struck by the beauty of the sunlight shining through the trees. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the things I need to do, like the breakfast dishes, that I fail to look up and see the beauty all around me.   It's a great reminder that I need to stop and smell the roses - or enjoy the fall colors!  Natalie was home with me today and she was kind enough to grab the camera and capture this moment forever.  

Natalie was home because she has a cough that has been lingering for almost two months. Just a cough. No fever or any other symptoms really. Still, she's coughing almost constantly and complains of heartburn, which the way she describes it sounds like maybe she's having a hard time breathing deeply without pain. We were at the doctor a couple of weeks ago to have it checked out and she was given antibiotics (just in case the cough was due to an infection) and steroids to help get her lungs back in shape. 


We were back at the doctor today because even after all that, she's just not any better and will often be coughing so much that she can barely catch a breath. I was grateful that the nurse practitioner we saw today was more thorough in her examination than the provider we saw last time. Today Natalie took a lung function test which she failed miserably because she just couldn't sustain a long exhalation. Then they checked her pulse oximetry, which she also failed, but this time because the levels of oxygen in her blood were too low. So she was the lucky recipient of a breathing treatment and she had her chest x-rayed! Hopefully we'll have some answers tomorrow and a plan of action to get Natalie back to full health.

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