Asthma?

We arrived home from our trip last month to a sick little girl.  Our plane landed around 6:00 pm and we headed straight for home.  We were so excited to see everyone!  Brad's parents were watching the girls for us and told us that Erin was running a 104 fever and showed signs of an ear infection.  By the time we got home, we checked her over and noticed she was also working hard to breathe.  We thought she had pneumonia again.  Since it was after normal clinic hours and also a weekend, we had another ER visit.  This time we brought her to the local ER that is just a mile from our house. 
The doctor listened to Erin's breathing and did an x-ray.  He was sure it was pneumonia since he heard some crackling in her lungs.  The x-ray eventually came back clear.  She did have a really bad double ear infection though so they gave us a prescription and sent us on our way.
The next day she was still miserable and she seemed to get worse into the night.  I gave her a neb treatment, but her breathing didn't seem to improve.  We made the decision to bring her down to Children's Hospital around midnight.  
The doctor at Children's did another x-ray and this time it came back showing signs of pneumonia.  Erin was also a little dehydrated since she didn't have very much of an appetite all week.  They put in an IV and then also did a neb treatment.  Erin's oxygen levels were not improving and staying around 86-90.  The doctors wanted to see improvement and decided to observe her overnight since she just had a week long hospital stay only four months ago. 
The next morning the doctor told us that they took a second look at Erin's x-ray and said that there wasn't pneumonia.  However, they diagnosed Erin with what is called Reactive Airway Disease (aka Asthma).  They can't test a child for asthma at Erin's age, so that's why they label it as RAD. 
So...our overnight stay turned into a three day hospital stay.  The janitors are starting to remember us!  (just kidding) 
We are now giving Erin a neb treatment every day for 30 days.  She will then probably continue to be on a daily neb treatment...we will find out at her next doctor visit this week.

During the neb treatments, Erin still found a way to suck her thumb!