and it went on for 3 months

(hads on her first plane trip)

february 16th.


that is the exact day that hadley started coughing. we can remember it no problem because it was the day we took off for our yearly family trip to jamaica. she was 10 months old.


her cough persisted the entire vacation. she would cough so hard that she would vomit.


we took her to the ped 5 times. we took her to the er 3 times. we took her to her gi two times. all with the hopes of finding out why hadley could not stop coughing.


her cough lasted 3 months. a very long 3 months.


june 2nd.


the first visit for hadley to her pulmonologist. i so wish we had taken her during her actual coughing issue. this dr, who was really terrific, saw a girl that coughed maybe once our entire 2 hour visit. i went on to explain to him about the horrible cough that hadley had for 3 months. went so far as to show him a video clip of her cough. the cough that would induce vomiting. the cough that would irritate her reflux. the cough that would keep her from sleeping through the night. that horrible, terrible cough.


he told me it sounded like pertussis, also known as whooping cough. and it smacked me in the face. hard. i don't know how i didn't see it before.


taken from abc news: "Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious bacterial infection characterized by violent coughing fits, gasps for air that resemble "whoop" sounds, and vomiting. The symptoms can last for up to two months, and while an antibiotic is available to prevent spread of the disease, "it won't shorten the illness in the person already infected," says Trudy Murphy, a medical epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Control (CDC).  


this same article went on to say, "A preliminary CDC count estimated over 11,000 pertussis cases in the past year, an increase of over two thousand from the previous year and the highest count recorded in thirty years."


i wasn't so floored by the fact that it is on the rise, given so many people's opposition to vaccinations. 


what did floor me was the number of doctors that hadley saw for said cough, at least 8 different ones, vs. the number of whooping cough tests she had during that time, ZERO.


the er visits that hadley had were when her cough was so bad she could not go more than two minutes without a coughing fit. we were told it was either asthma, reactive airway, or a virus. one visit we were literally just given tylenol w/ codeine to knock her out so she could actually sleep. still never getting to the root of the issue.


so i will stop here and just say that i am convinced that hadley had whooping cough.


whooping cough!


she had received 2 pertussis boosters by that time. i was vaccinated at her birth. phil was vaccinated when hads was a few weeks old. (thank you lynne and zann for your true life advice) caroline was vaccinated. it still happened.


i am just thankful she is ok now.