Poor Gracie has Pneumonia

Wed 6th December 2006
Grace Lauren Disney is my beautiful (nearly) 3 year old daughter. She is clever, feisty, confident and fun and has always been healthy since her birth (2 weeks late) on 15 January 2004.

Grace was admitted to The Royal Surrey Hospital this evening. Grace originally developed a cough a little while ago but this only bothered her a little at night and she was generally fine. However, on Saturday (2nd Dec), Grace developed a high fever and so we gave her some Calpol and cared for her at home. On Sunday we also gave her children's Nurofen to ease the fever and, despite being pretty cranky, she ate and generally seemed to be on the mend. This continued on Monday but Grace was no worse. However, yesterday morning when Grace awoke she seemed to be taking quicker, shallower breaths and so we (her Granny and I) took her to our GP. The doctor examined Grace and said she probably just had an 'upper airway viral infection' and so we should continue as we had been doing with the Calpol and Nurofen - alternately each every 6 hours or so. Grace didn't eat anything for all of yesterday though and actually asked to go to bed at around 6pm, which is very unlike her. This morning we became more worried and again took her to the GP. This time I broke down in the GP's office and explained how worried I was. The GP (a different one) was understanding, if a bit patronising, and said that Grace almost certainly needed some antibiotics to help her fight off this virus. She prescribed Amoxicillin suspension and suggested that we administer this immediately and again later today but also pre-booked us another appointment for the evening surgery and suggested that we return if we were still concerned. At 5.40pm, we returned to the surgery and were told by a third GP that she probably had an early pneumonia and should be admitted to hospital for a chest X-ray and appropriate treatment. I am obviously really worried and will stay with Grace in hospital tonight to make sure that she is properly cared for and gets better asap.