Bronchitis, Pneumonia and great news!

Sounds weird, doesn't it? But it's true. My kids were sick enough to go to the pediatrician last week. sore throat, bad cough, head cold to boot and now they're all fine---except for our youngest dd, you know, the one who wears the halo from her spinal fusion surgery. So this week, three of the four are much, much better. Our youngest is not. I've watched her over the weekend sleep during the day/cough deeply at night and have known something wasn't right and good. ( She's been living her life in the highchair and stroller for over a month now because the halo has some serious structural problems. Think: bolts coming off when we've least expected it; corner posts flailing around....pretty scarey stuff. Many trips to the surgeon's office to have it re-positioned on her shoulders, etc) I went to the MD myself because I felt awful. I've had the same symptoms but haven't gotten any better either and the MD dx'ed me with having bronchitis. Antibiotics and codeine at night and I should be fine in a couple of days. I took dd back to the pediatrician for fear she'd come about with pneumonia again. Sure enough, the x-rays showed pneumonia---even some collapse of a bit of airway (if I'm understanding correctly) because of the pneumonia. While there, the ped's nurse and another nurse in the grouping agrees with me that her halo is extremely close to her skull. (A concern with the surgeon's office last month while another surgeon was working with her.) By now, there are a couple of places where the true halo part is near to rubbing her skull. Yikes! Due to this and the pneumonia, our ped calls the surgeon's office to say she thinks the halo is dangerously close to the skull and waiting another 2.5weeks might bring about additional problems in the form of a wound from the rubbing of the halo? We were having to wait an additional 2 plus weeks to have the halo taken off because this office is incredibly busy and surgeons for these kinds of matters are few and far between in this neck of the woods. While I hate that she has pneumonia----our family is thrilled it will be taken off THIS WEEK! Hooray! Next Monday (May 12) would have been the 90th day....so close enough to take it off. Thank God the CAT scan was done last week.....the doc can see how well its healed. May not sound like a lot for some, but this is monumental for our family. It has been a huge burden to deal with for the last 90 days---keeping us from going many places as a family or at all---because of the instability of the apparatus and the nature of our special needs baby girl. Just had to share......and for those who've been praying for us, THANK YOU!!!!!! Sincerely, Linny