Holy Croup!

Well the last few days have been a bit of an adventure of us. On Saturday the 26th, Kevin was pretty congested most of the day. He was playing as normal and wasn't running a fever but he didn't sound too good. Well that night at 11am he began crying and I went into his room to check on him. I was pretty shocked when I found him gasping for breath and his chest and belly were really tight. He was wheezing really badly and wasn't getting a whole lot of oxygen. I went and got Steve and off we went to the ER. Thankfully in the car ride there he began sounding better, but we weren't going to go home without knowing what was wrong.

So at exactly midnight we walked into the ER. An interesting start to his 22nd month birthday. :-) They had alot of sick children most of them were presumably in for the flu or H1N1 flu. We checked in and they had Kevin wear a little face mask in case he coughed. I knew he really wasn't feeling well when he did fight wearing it. I was very surprised that we were seen by a nurse pretty quickly and were moved to waiting area 2. After about an hour of waiting we were shown to a room.

When the doctor came in he listened to Kevin and said he was wheezing but also had the signature cough (bark) of croup. He wanted to give Kevin chest x-ray's to make sure he didn't have pneumonia.

For me the X-rays were the worst! They have this contraption that the child sits on and with the child's arms above their head they strap these clear plastic shields around the child's torso and chest. Click here to see a photo. For Kevin most of his head was in this plastic shield and only his little arms stuck out the top. They then had us leave. It was horrible, he kept crying/screaming and asking for Mommy and Daddy, while we were stuck outside the room just listening to him. Horrible! I know it was a necessity and the staff were really nice to Kevin but I really didn't like that contraption! I thought of it as a torture chamber, because it was torturing Kevin and me.

We then went back to the room and were told he only had croup and were going to give him some medication. After taking his medicine they put him on an oxygen/nebulizer. For Steve and I that was a challenge. He really didn't like the mask being on his face. I had to hold Kevin down and Steve had to hold the mask on his face. Thankfully Steve has Kevin's favorite song and video Go Go a Go Go by the Fresh Beat band on his phone. So he turned it on and Kevin sat somewhat still while we did the treatment, we were still holding him down though.

At 4am we were discharged and were able to come home. By 5am we were in bed, but poor Steve had to get up at 7am to catch a flight for a business trip. And Kevin got up at 8am. We were all dragging on Sunday.

The last few days Kevin and I have pretty much been hanging out at home. He is possibly contagious so we really haven't gone anywhere. (ER doc said he wasn't, online said he was, we erred on the side of caution.) He is acting normal but just sounds pretty bad, wheezing when he is just chilling out and barking when he gets excited (tickling, running, jumping). But this hasn't stopped him a bit, he is still as active as ever.

Today we did follow up with Kevin's pediatrician and she told us that he will continue to sound yucky (wheezing) but he won't be contagious after tomorrow. Yea! Now we just get to wait about 5 days for everything to clear out and he will be as good as new. :-)

I must admit going to the ER wasn't the way I wanted to start out Kevin's 22 month birthday. But thankfully it wasn't for something more serious.

While we were waiting Steve did snap a photo of Kevin with his little face mask on.