911 this time

Twice Jack has gone to the E.R. for croup. If you have never experienced croup with a small child thank God. It sucks.

The first time he was about 1 1/2. He woke up after a few hours of sleeping and was wheezing uncontrollably with a hacking cough that sounded like a seal, not good. Neither Todd nor I had ever heard of anything like this with him before so we promptly tossed him in his car seat and drove to the nearest hospital. They tried giving him oxygen but he wouldn't have anything to do with the mask, so he cried uncontrollably (which makes it worse) until we finally were able to get him to calm down. They gave him a steroid shot, which opens up the lungs, and home bound we went.

Fast forward to this fall and he gets it again. We try to control it with steam baths, but it continues on during the day (it's usually a night thing). We head to peds office and they give him a shot. Dr. Marc (our ped.) tells us, "If it gets worse or doesn't get any better tonight, you might have to take him to the E.R. for a breathing treatment." UGH- Todd's out of town. Great. We end up in the E.R. again, thank God for friends, Meags ran over to stay with Riley.

Fast forward to this past Friday night. Jack has not had a runny nose in weeks. In fact, we have all been healthy for over a week, a miracle for this fall. Todd and I stay up late wrapping and putting together a present for Jack. We hit the sack and a few minutes later I hear Jack coughing. I rush, I mean rush-like-your-kid's-dying-rush, down the hall and open Jack door. This is what I see: Jack sitting up, coughing, hacking, wheezing, almost hyperventilating, dry heaving, crying and yelling, "My throat mommy......" I about lost it. We ran into the shower to do a steam bath, meanwhile Jack is spitting up foamy mucus and (i thought) on the verge of his throat closing up.

Todd rushes in and we decide to call 911. His croup has never been this bad, ever. It was scary. In a few minutes several people show up at the door, including an E.R. nurse who listened to his chest. Guess what? His lungs were clear. UGH! After using an oxygen mask for about 10 minutes he started to get better. We debated taking him in or not, knowing that since his lungs were clear there really wasn't much they would do. We decided to stay home and take our chances. We set up the vaporizer and an air mattress on the floor for me and hit the sack.

Needless to say it was a long night, but he's fine now, just has a little cold.

Let's hope it doesn't happen again.

Until next time...