Poor girl

With Pony Gal's prematurity came a lot of respiratory issues. We were really hoping that we had moved past a lot of them, finally, as we hadn't noticed too much as of late. But then last night we were all awake around 2 when she started her tale-tell constant cough. In the past, about every time Pony Gal got a little cold, she would have night time asthma issues. It took telling the dr several times that something was up for him to check it all out. They prescribed inhaled steroids, which we used when she was little, but I later found (which was great because she HATED that stupid nebulizer) that just having her sleep right by a humidifier worked great, and she could sleep soundly. We have always had the little room ones, so it was easy to accomplish-we just parked her on her mattress on the floor next to it, and closed the door to the room to lock all the moisture in. But, we run through those small humidifiers yearly, which lead to us looking for a larger one this year. We found a really nice one at DAV several weeks back for $9.99 (yikes-way cheaper than what we were looking at in the store!) plus new filters, which were like $20. And it has been great having the whole house a little more humidified. But the thing was set up in the dining room, and last night when she started coughing, I was a little dumbfounded. Crazy thing, my head does not work so well at 2 in the morning. Anyway, I made her some warm milk with honey hoping that would just coat her throat a bit, but it made no dent whatsoever. About that point Dad woke up and has had a very painful swollen lymph right by his ear, and he asked me to warm up some ear oil for him. So I did that, and while thinking about that thought about moving Pony Gal out to the dining room to sleep next to the humidifier. But I didn't really want to do that, I didn't think she would want to, either. About then Dad also decided, since he had work in the morning, to move to Superboy's room to sleep. She was really coughing like nonstop. She can sleep though some of it, but then it wakes her up, as well. She told me she couldn't take anymore of it, which just made me feel awful. So supermom showed up. I had just filled the 12 gallon humidifier right before bed. It sits on carpet, so the wheels do very little. Nevertheless, I drug the thing in next to her bed in our room and set it up. And almost immediately-like 10 minutes-after having done so, she was asleep and she didn't cough the rest the night. We will see in coming winters if this stuff sticks around. For what she went through in the beginning, this is the only thing that she has to show for it, and that is great. We saw all kinds of NICU "graduates" that did not fare so well, and we count our blessings every day. It does not, however, make it any more fun for her or us (well, really me as Dad is not the take-care-of-the-kids-in-the-middle-of-the-night type). So, in short, I need sleep ;)