We spent Friday night with an increasingly sick baby. He actually slept pretty well, probably because he was so exhausted. We finally bought a decent thermometer (the ear one we had was just woefully inaccurate) and he was at 101.4F on Saturday morning. We called the on call nurse and they told us (more or less) that it was too bad he had a fever, but without other concerns, he'd be fine.
Saturday brought with it congestion, drooling, and lots of spitting up of food and milk. Saturday night was pretty much an all-nighter. He just couldn't get comfortable or sleep much at all. We did a couple of steam showers to loosen things up, and while it helped clear him out a bit, he was still feverish and just generally miserable. Brian took the second shift after I'd been up for almost 24 hours so I could get a little sleep (bless you, darling), and during those few hours his temp went up to 102.8. While Brian had actually gotten him to sleep in his crib for over an hour (magic if you ask me), when he woke up he had an alarming cough and was really struggling to breathe. There was no question that we were going to head into the ER.
Thankfully we live close by and there was absolutely no one in the waiting room when we got there. Surprising for a Sunday morning if you ask me. I suspect it was a pretty severe case of croup given their reaction. It was almost immediately diagnosed, and before long we were giving him his first nebulizer treatment of epinephrine. I forgot to mention that he was crying pretty much straight without stop for the majority of this time... sad, low, hoarse crying.
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| After serious medication |
After that that he got a shot of steroids that should have a longer life (72 hours) and waited the 4 hours for that to kick in. The nebulizer treatment helped a ton and he was definitely more comfortable though he still couldn't really sleep for more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time, but after 4 hours they still weren't happy with how he sounded and we were told he'd get another nebulizer treatment and we would probably stay the night. Thankfully, after another 4 hours they listened to him and gave us the option to either go home or stay overnight. We decided to go home since there wasn't much more they could do at the hospital and we could all be a little more comfortable in our own beds.
Did I mention that Mom had come to hang out with us in the hospital? She also came home with us and has been doing the bulk of the night care while Brian and I try to catch up a bit on sleep. (The cold air of the night is an amazing wonder drug for croup) I wish for everyone a mother as wonderful as my own.
We are certainly not out of the woods yet, and the pediatrician has been following up with us to make sure things don't get worse, but at least he's able to sleep in stints now (only if he's being held) and is able to be distracted when he's awake and actually smiling. We've come a long way.
Sidenote: Everytime I say "croup" I feel like I'm in Anne of Green Gables and Nathan is Minnie Mae.
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| before Saturday night |
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