Another Trip to the ER

Croupy, Sick Boy

Thomas has croup. Croup sounds like a normal illness that every kid gets eventually. No big deal. But it was actually completely terrifying.

Last night we had some friends over for dinner. Originally it was just supposed to be Alexa, Chris and their son Cam but then Jeremy's friend Nathan and his daughter Saige decided to drive into town and Nathan invited his friend David over as well. So what started out as dinner for six turned into dinner for nine. This always seems to happen. So, I was a little frazzled.

Before everyone came over for dinner, Thomas coughed a couple of times during his nap. I didn't really think much about it. It was a harsh, barking cough but he only coughed three or four times. And I was really busy.

Then, while I was cooking dinner, I noticed that he was wheezing. I asked Jer to keep a close eye on him and after a couple of minutes, it stopped. About half an hour later he started coughing again and wheezing and crying. I was afraid that he had something stuck in his throat. I saw one of those TLC shows about mothers once, Bringing Home Baby or something, where the older daughter, a toddler, got caught playing with some change. The next day she stopped breathing and was rushed to the hospital. She had swallowed a dime but it got caught in her throat and moved around until it blocked her airway.

I called our insurance nurse hotline. She told us to call our pediatrician. But by the time I got off the phone, he was breathing fine and playing with the other kids. He seemed fine again.

Thomas stayed up late playing with Saige after Alexa, Chris and Cam left. Before we put him to bed he was really wheezing and breathing hard. But he was running around, laughing. I was really worried about him but we decided to put him the bed and just check on him throughout the night.

Twenty minutes after he layed down we heard him crying. He sounded panicked. I ran into his room and he was laying in his crib, gasping for air. It was horrible. I thought he was about to stop breathing. I snatched him up and brought him out into the living room where I could see him better. His lips were red so I thought he was still doing okay but he was working so hard to breathe. We decided to take him to the emergency room and by the time we got him strapped into his car seat, he was breathing easier but still wheezing.

We finally found a hospital without 50 people in the waiting room. He started to struggle to breathe again in the waiting room. I told the receptionist that he was having a really hard time and they called us in. He had a fever and a barking cough so they immediately knew it was croup. The gave him a breathing treatment and he fell asleep. (This took 3 hours; why are the staff in the emergency room so slow? We could see five and six people at a time chatting behind the desk. Ugh.)

He's still sick. His fever keeps coming back but he can breathe. If he had gotten the fever earlier, I think I would have realized it was croup and just turned the bathroom into a sauna. But he didn't seem sick. Jeremy thought he'd sucked in a bug or something. He kept getting better.

So, I managed to take my kid to the emergency room for croup. I feel a little ridiculous.