ER

Well, today has been a long day. After Jerusalem, Atticus had a bit of a cough and runny nose, but I wasn't too concerned. Over the day on Wednesday, it kept getting worse. Of course - the one thing I didn't bring was his "Little Noses" saline spray, so I went in search of a pharmacy yesterday while we were strolling Tel Aviv. Mission accomplished, I picked up some seawater spray and we went on with the day. Alas - he seemed to lose his appetite during the afternoon and the coughing and wheezing just got worse. At about 11 pm, I had the brilliant idea that it would have been helpful if I'd purchased an aspirator when I got the saline spray to help get rid of some of the gunk in his nose. Poor guy just couldn't breathe!! A few late night emails with Nicole and Brad and they tracked down a 24 hour pharmacy for me. My Mom, Atticus and I hailed a cab just before midnight and went to get the aspirator to see if it would help.

Not so much.

This morning, Atticus was just plain miserable. His eyes were all red, his nose was running non-stop and you could just hear the gunk rumbling around in his chest every time he coughed. Sigh. I feel awful. If you could see his little face when it's all red from coughing, it's just so sad. I want to help and I know there's not much they can do for coughs in children. But... since there was so much congestion in his chest, I decided to skip the Mossada and Dead Sea excursion today and venture to the Children's Hospital in Tel Aviv. I was extremely lucky that Hadas had the day free and offered to go with me. Hadas is the best. She really is such a great person. She and I cabbed down to the hospital and over the course of the morning, Atticus was examined and had a chest x-ray. The good news is that it isn't pneumonia -- the chest x-ray came back clear. And... the oxygen test and pulse were both good too. But, since the little man was wheezing (of course not nearly as much when we were in the presence of the doctor), they gave us a breathing treatment and sent me to the pharmacy to pick up a respirator type thing to use for the next few days here at the apartment. I was able to figure out the medicine and the mask thingy and we did our first treatment tonight.

Atti is currently kinda-sorta sleeping in the other room. I can still hear him coughing every now and then, but I'm hoping he'll sleep a little better throughout the night. Here's to hoping. We have to do the breathing treatments 3 times a day for three days -- and hopefully he'll be back to his usual happy go-lucky self in time for the next trip to Jerusalem on Monday. Tomorrow is another relatively quiet day. There's a crafty flea market/artist bazaar thingy that I want to go to in the morning and then Brad's folks are hosting a BBQ in the park in the afternoon. That's all that's on the schedule for tomorrow, so hopefully we can squeeze in another good nap or two for the little man. I really feel awful. I wish I could get the aspirator thingy to work better so I could suck out some of the snot.

Well... it's now almost 10pm and my Mom and Bubbe still haven't returned from today's trip. I hope they get in soon, I want to hear all about it.

Amy W arrived yesterday and it was so cool to see her. I can't believe it's been since the wedding since we last saw each other in person. Nuts. Tomorrow Goat and Darren arrive. We're getting closer to the wedding festivities. Let's just get everyone healthy and all will be well.