Grace aspirated...

Last night, we went and got the kids pictures taken and then went out for dinner. Grace was drinking strawberry milk, from a wide straw. I should have known better than to let her use that straw but I let her try it. She choked. It was pretty good one too, coughing, sputtering, gasping a little blue tint to the skin. Sadly, it didn't even phase me!! Last night though, she developed a coarse, wet cough. She's had a cough at night anyway, but this was different. At about 4 am, I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach, that she had aspirated. I called her doctor first thing when they opened, and he wanted to see her. He heard the same thing I do, a much wetter sounding lung. He could have sent us for a chest x-ray, but he knows Grace very well. He decided to just treat the aspiration pneumonia, because he's heard pneumonia in her lungs so often now. It also saves her from having yet another x ray and more radiation. So she is on an antibiotic for the next 10 days, and I have to watch her very carefully for fever and signs that it is worsening.