I hate asthma (yes, another post...her worst attack ever in the 5 years she has had it)

Yesterday was short-day at the girls school (every wednesday is). They get out at 1:40 instead of 3:40. Alorah had a cough and a little bit of a runny nose for a few days so she has been on Claritin. Peoples allergies are going nuts because of ragweed. I didn't think too much of it. She needed her neb yesterday morning but is still sounded like a "allergy" cough and not an asthma cough. Not 5 minutes after we walked in the door she started to cough and could not stop. She turned purple, threw up, continued to cough. Scared the crap out of me. I called her doctor's office, they told me to try to get some albuterol in her and get her down to the hospital to the pediatric urgent care. I threw the kids in the car, dropped Faith and Vance with my mom, and we went in. She coughed the whole way there and threw up more mucus. She kept turning bright red, she was sweating a ton, and her lips kept turning purple. It was the longest drive. We got there at 2:20. Her pulse-ox was 94, she was very wheezy, retracting etc. They gave her a double-dose of albuterol, atrovent, and a mega dose of oral steroids. We were there for a couple hours and she seemed fine. I got the kids, came home, fed them dinner and it happened AGAIN. She had all those meds only 2 hours before and she went into the same attack, turning purple, again. Levi had to work late but thankfully this attack started just before he got home. I hooked her up to the neb and when he got home we rushed back down to peds u/c. We get there and her pulse-ox is down to 90, it had been 98 when we left. It was about 6:45 that we got there. She was wheezing again and retracting but not as badly as she had been. They gave her another double-dose of albuterol and did a chest x-ray. Her lungs are hyper-inflated and it clearly showed mucus plugs (look at this site for an explanation of those, there is a diagram: http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec04/ch044/ch044a.html) She doesn't have pneumonia and she rebounds while she is there. We got home around 9pm, I nebbed her again at 10. We went to bed and I nebbed her at 2am. She got up at 6am and went into the same coughing fit. Throwing up, turning purple, etc. I gave her 3 nebs in an hour and a half and that got her to stop coughing but she was retracting and wheezing and flaring even after all that. I called the dr's office and they got her in at 9:45. I dropped Faith off and met my MIL, she took Vance, then we went in. We didn't get to see dr. tom, we saw the other doc in his practice who is really good too. She was at 93% and wheezing, retracting, flaring etc. They gave her another mega dose of steroids and another neb there. Then they watched her for an hour and a half. Her pulse-ox never went over 94% but she is maintaining. She is in this gray area. She isn't quite bad enough to need to go into the hospital, but she is definitely having a serious attack. Since she rebounded there they decided not to admit her. I have to neb her every 3 hours, regardless of how she is feeling, for the next 48 hours, she will be on steroids 2 extra days, and they are hoping with a 2nd mega dose (basically a mega dose is a whole days worth in one shot, normally she would get 3 doses through the day) that she will be able to turn the corner and stay out of the hospital. She has a fever of 100.4, which she didn't have yesterday, so she may have caught a virus on top of her allergies. I'm not sure. I am SUPER upset that her teacher kept sending her to get drinks of water instead of to the nurse. She has never had an attack this bad. She said she kept coughing at school but her teacher just told her to go to the water fountain :(. Thank GOD it was short day, I can't imagine if she had turned purple there, would they have known what to do? Or what if she had been on the playground and no one noticed. UGH! I have to go in and have a talk with her on Monday. Alorah is going to be spending the next 2 days in bed, the more she rests and the less her lungs have to work outside of the asthma the better. I had already made an appt. for her to see Dr. Tom next week about this. They put her back on Flovent, a higher dose, we are continuing the claritin, and then the albuterol and steroids. I had to reschedule my pain clinic appt. for next week too. What a long 24 hours it has been...

Hopefully she will turn the corner! I really do not want her to go in to the hospital :*