Petite's First Cold; UPDATED

Petite has a cold. A full-blown, snotty, coughing, sore throat kinda cold. Courtesy of Hubby who brought the darn thing home sometime last week and graciously passed it to both Petite and me. (Can't you tell I'm thrilled?)

Anyway, I'm not so concerned about a run-of-the-mill cold. I mean seriously, everyone gets them and she was bound to get sick sometime in her first year of life. There's snot a-flyin, cranky feeding times (she just doesn't want to drink from a bottle at all, cause she can't breathe), fever (but that seems to have broken this morning), runny, watery eyes, and a cough.

It's the cough that worries me.

She's had it since Saturday. It's congested, mucousy, and she coughs so hard and long that it makes her vomit. She's miserable, poor baby girl. And this morning, she coughed for 20 minutes straight, and spent the next 10 minutes crying about it in my arms. We've tried warmth and humidity in the bathroom with a hot shower running, cooler mist with a humidifier in our bedroom where she sleeps, we've raised the head of her mattress, we've tried to pat her back to encourage her to spit out the gunk, everything. No go.

So this morning I called Tele.health and spoke to a nurse. After getting the details, she advised that I take Petite to see a doctor to make sure it's not something more serious like whooping cough, croup or pneumonia. I called our family doctor and explained the situation. Petite has an appointment in an hour and a half. It's probably nothing, but I want to make sure. Wish us luck.

UPDATE:
The doctor found the fever was back (mild, but still a fever) and said upon seeing her, "My, but you're not a healthy specimen are you little girl?" Nice huh? Yeah, Petite is miserable. The doctor diagnosed respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which is very common in infants. But it can cause respiratory distress so we've got a handle o a couple of things that may help her. I have a history of asthma and bronchitis and I'm prone to pneumonia when a cold gets down in my chest and because of all that, the doc figured that an orange inhaler (with an infant aerochamber) may help her. She said we'd see a big difference within a day if it helps. If not, this could last a week or so and we're to keep a close eye on her breathing in case she needs to go to the hospital for oxygen treatments. Poor little girl. I gotta go give her something to drink/eat and try to get some fluids in her. It's going to be an interesting few days...