Croup

Doesn't that look like fun? We had our first real bout of croup this weekend that turned into steroids and nebulizer treatments today, poor baby. What's amazing is how a few hours after her throwing up due to her inability to breathe, how fast medicine can turn it all around.

It started Saturday. I heard it in the morning, a slight bark, but dismissed it. Then she woke up from a nap coughing and crying. She had a fine evening and then a terrible, awful, very bad night. We took turns with her in our bed and the other sleeping in Andy's room (note to self -- Andy needs a new mattress that doesn't feel like I was in a sleeping bag outside it was so hard). I had talked to the doctor's the day before who said to give her half a teaspoon of Benadryl (generic of course thanks to the McNeil recall) and to come in the next day for a strep test.

Indeed on Mother's Day, I dragged my exhausted self and her to the doctor where we waited for nearly two hours for a quick strep test and a diagnosis of "Yep. It's croup." He also checked that it wasn't in her lungs and that it should improve. And you know, it really did improve. She took a long, four hour nap and then slept well, just waking up twice. In the morning, she seemed better even -- no fever either. But I got the call from my babysitter only an hour after drop off saying the cough made her nervous and she had a little fever. I picked her up and we went home for a nap. And she did nap except about an hour in she woke up, coughed, cried and promptly threw up all over me. It was awful, because she was scared, she was breathing faster, and because she was breathing faster, it was that much harder. It was just like watching an asthma attack. I called the doctor's immediately and was seen 20 minutes later and probably 20 minutes after that she was getting a nebulizer treatment followed by a steroid shot to reduce the inflammation in her trachea. We left with a prescription for prednisone to give her twice a day for two days and to come back Wednesday for another appointment.

You know, I really like our pediatrician, but sometimes his people skills. Well, yeah, not so much. "Don't worry. We won't let her slip away." Um? Slipping away? That didnt' even occur to me! "At least her trachea won't collapse like it does on some nine-month-olds." Yeah, that didn't occur to me either. At least his clinical skills are excellent. My baby went from blue lips to running around the living room saying, "Chasing, chasing, chasing!" as she follows her brother around. I can live with some sub par people skills if he can give that back to me.