After little more than a week coughing, sneezing and intermittent fever, we decided to take Leia to the ER at Punta Pacífica Hospital when she got up this morning with 39.6ºC and coughing hard. We contacted Adara’s paediatrician (Adara is the Mexican friend we met queueing at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris flying to Panama) who is a specialist in lung related children diseases. Punta Pacifica Hospital is associated with Johns Hopkins International Medicine and ranked as one of the top 5 hospitals in Latin America. Oh boy, now we realise how good hospitals (even some public health service ones) are in Spain. Not that the Hospital was bad – there were some goodies not available in Barcelona (or in Europe in general) like free valet service for parking your car (actually it is not free, it is included in the pretty hefty bill you get when you check out…).
Diagnostic after a chest x-ray, blood tests and nose mucus tests: it is not pneumonia (yet), only a pretty bad bronchitis that could turn into something worse if we don’t treat it immediately.
Treatment: NO NURSERY (actually the Doc recommended no nursery around here until 2 years old), no open windows (the air is too humid, so airco at 25ºc), advil/tylenol/lukewarm baths to control fever, some stuff to allow all the shit in her lungs to get away and an antibiotic because there are early signs of bacterial infection.
Fortunately we have Maria, a nicaraguan (legal) immigrant that we hired to help us with cleaning, cooking and taking care of Leia. She was recommended by a friend’s friend and so far we are very happy with her: pro-active, cleaning maniac and super sweet with Leia, who is still getting used to not having Lucía around (the brazilian nanny we had in Barcelona) but already has a lot of fun playing peek-a-boo with her.
Looks like our search for furniture will have to wait – living in an empty apartment is not fun (we don’t even have chairs to sit and eat – that should be arriving tomorrow) but our little princess comes first.