Hospital scare and long month.

Good Bye February! What an exhausting month.

Andrew has been sick pretty much all winter. He developed a cough in the very beginning of December that wouldn't go away. We tried everything and had many doctor appts and chest x-rays done to try and figure out why he wouldn't get better. The cough was mostly at night and it would get pretty bad at times. He would wake up in coughing fits and not be able to catch his breath. So we tried asthma inhalers, allergy medications, humidifiers, etc.

Then about two weeks ago he seemed to come down w/ what we thought was the flu. He had three days of high temps and throwing up/diarrhea. His cough also got worse w/ a vengeance. We ended up racing in to his room on several occasions to check on him b/c he sounded so awful. On one of those occasions he couldn't breath. His coloring was pale/bluish to the lips and he was in this horrifying fight to get air into his lungs. I have never before in my life been so scared. I immediately threw him in the car and raced to the nearby Children's hospital. I was crying the entire way. In those minutes I thought that I could possibly lose him. I will never forget that panic. I could hear him in this weak struggle trying to breath in the backseat but was just relieved to hear that he was managing to get some oxygen into his lungs.

When we got to the hospital they took us immediately back and got Andrew some humidified oxygen while getting him hooked up to all the monitors and machines. I was told he had a severe case of Croup. The doctor also told me that more than likely he's a child prone to croup and has had it in varying degrees over and over all winter. He told me the signs and what I could do to help Andrew when his coughing gets so bad. I was so pissed at my pediatrician for not even considering croup. It all made sense. Most of the time croup isn't serious but it can be very serious in a small portion of children. Andrew is one of them. He has smaller than normal airway passages so when his throat swells from the croup he's affected more seriously than the average child. It's also more serious in children under the age of three. So I was told more than likely we'll have to deal with this each winter until the croup becomes milder as he gets older. But...I can give him a lot of relief by getting him lots of cold air which helps the swelling in his throat go down. I can take him outside when he first starts coughing and have him breath in the wet moist air. Or drive around with him while the windows are down. When it gets bad I have to take him in and get him on steroids and I have an appt w/ a pediatric nose, throat and eye specialist to see if there are any other factors contributing.

Andrew is doing much better now. He was on the steroids for 6 days and that seemed to do the trick. I haven't even heard him cough in days. Of course his brother has that same flu type virus last week (without cough) so it's been a bit difficult around here.

I'm drained.

But on a positive note: Operation CIO "cry it out" was a total success even w/ all that has been going on. Matthew has never slept better! He's sleeping through the night and taking a 2-3 hour nap each day (the longest naps he's ever taken) =)



Matthew on left, Andrew on right.