Croup has returned!

It is nearly mid-night & I find myself glued to the monitor. Reece has croup. This is a magically stressful word in our family considering our history with Gage. So I thought I would play a couple games of solitaire while the house cooled off a bit (turned thermostat way down) in hopes it will loosen her throat a bit.

For those of you who don't know or if I haven't posted our "experience" with croup & Gage here's a synapsis. When Gage was 14 months old (only weeks older than Reece is now) he got croup. It came on so fast. Late in the afternoon I had him in the Drs' office for a wheeze but by 10pm that night he could barely breath. We rushed him to the hospital for breathing treatments in the ER...no luck. After a super-shot of Steroids with no relief they decided to admit him. Gage & I spent 4-5 days in a moisture tent. The only time I wasn't with him was for brief bathroom breaks when Daddy crawled in the tent with him. He struggled to breath the entire time and had breathing treatments every 2 hours. After day number 4 we met with an ENT specialist who recommended they put him under and try to get a look at his throat with a little camera...to see what was going on there. He warned us that Gage would probably come out with a breathing tube & sedated. If it gets our boy better or helps him breath...let's do it we said. The days of watching him suffer & not being able to help him other than sooth him & keep him calm, then watching him be taken away by a nurse crying & screaming was more than I ever thought I could handle as a mom....I was wrong...I handled that and a whole lot more. The doctor came out of the procedure stating he could not get the tiny camera through his throat it was so closed. They were able to barely fit an infant sized breathing tube in to intubate him. They informed us he would most likely be transferred to Childrens' Hospital the next day. I ran home for a shower and packed a bag. When I returned to the hospital and went to Gage's room, there was chaos. Apparently he had woken up, freeked out so they had to increase his sedation which sent his heart rate plummeting...just recalling this makes my heart hurt. The whole time he had hand restraints on to keep him from pulling out the tube if he "woke up". They stabilized him for the night but we were definitely going to Childrens' via Flight For Life the next morning. After the transfer was all set Brian & I ran home to pack bags for our trip to Denver with plans to meet the Flight For Life ambulance at Childrens'. We beat them there by 30 minutes....waiting was awful. When he was all settled I sat with him and told him stories, held his hand, sang him songs, stroked his face....crushed inside watching our first born so helplessly sick. We had the best nurse on the face of the planet, Chip. He was awesome. He made us so much more relaxed, at ease & confident of the medical treatment Gage was receiving. In the middle of the night on night 4 we received a call at our hotel that Gage had woke up, & pulled the tube out on his own. They were planning on extubating him the following day anyway...he couldn't wait. That food through a tube in his nose was more than he could bare...ha ha ha. He was so weak. The next day he could barely walk as he had not been on his feet in over a week. I stayed with him in the hospital that next night & we were released the next day. In follow up appointments it appears he got croup from a paraflu. He was in the 5% of children that have to go to the hospital and <1% who have to be intabated. It is an experience that has been burned into my heart & I do not want to repeat it with Reece-a-bug. She is not as tough as Gage and I am not sure Daddy could handle it with his little girl.

Well, her coughing has nearly stopped and she seems to be sleeping soundly so I might be able to rest while jumping at every sound from her monitor tonight. Here's hoping for a restfull night for all.