Croup

Hi there. I am up in the Intensive Care at Primary Children's Hospital again. I was here in February with Peter, and that's the kid I'm here with this time too. (Peter, we made it through 11 kids with no Intensive care visits! ...And here you are, and this is your second time!?! What do you have to say for yourself!) Diagnosis this time is Croup, Stridor, and Paraflu. Our health insurance was terminated as of Sep 30. so bad timing there. Not sure how this will be covered, but hey, Peter staying alive is more important than the cost. So, here's the story. He was fine on Friday - happy and playful. But he had a slight fever around 10pm and all the next day. He also had a bit of a scratchy voice on Friday night, which I thought might have been because he was sad and crying for me a lot after he went with my sister for a little bit. But he was fine on Saturday except for the slight fever. I gave him some tylonol during the day and ibuprofen before he went to bed. After that though, he woke up every 30 minutes from coughing which I think hurt his throat. That woke me up too and I tried to nurse him again to get him to sleep. We moved to the loveseat in our room, he was laying on me and was hot, getting us both sweaty. At 2 am he woke up in a panic like struggling to breath. He was heaving and gasping for air. It sounded bad and urgent, so I woke up Corey, told him I was taking Peter to the ER. He held Peter while I grabbed a few things, then I was off. As I was in the car, I decided to turn toward Primary's instead of Alta View. Peter sounded so bad the whole drive, I was just praying as I drove. And I was speeding. And I ran a red light (after I stopped, I treated it like a stop sign). I was ready to have a cop give me a police escort if one showed up around me, I felt like we had to get there fast. Last ER visit was peak sick season, and there was a short line at the ER, so I was grateful the ER wasn't busy. I was the only one there. I sent a few polo videos to my family with the play by play, I might upload some of those later. Peter's oxygen was low, so they put him on that. He preferred to chew it, they said whatever keeps him happy.

He was soon diagnosed with Croup and Stridor. They gave him 2 rounds of steroid something to help open up his airways, which helped but he was still retracting too much, so they started the 3rd and 4th treatments and told me that with more than 2 treatments, they keep the kid to monitor for 24 hours, so he would soon be being admitted to the hospital. Ok. So P took a nap while we waited to be admitted.

When they said stridor I thought we'd be out fairly quick, like when Natalie had stridor, and that I'd probably be back home today. But nope. So they gave him an IV, I walked out for that, cause I don't like to see that. He was calling for me to help him.

I got a video of him as they wheeled us to a room. It made me sad.

Up in the ICU I held him most of the time. I didn't leave to eat, and I didn't sleep. I felt like this mama elephant. I had to stay, I wanted to stay. I will not abandon my baby! I kinda felt like I did during the long 9 hour plane flights to South America. Get the baby comfortable and quiet, and then... freeze. Do not move or allow anything to disrupt his sleep.

I totally loved the ICU nurse. Last time, once I went away and I came back and he was crying in his crib and the nurse was just at her desk and didn't go in to comfort him!! This time the lady was awesome and snuggled him while I went to the sacrament meeting. There was a special spirit in that meeting. And I was touched by a line in the sacramental hymn "Thy work to do alone..." He was truly alone, I am never alone. I picked up this blue fleece blanket there - they had a table of things. I didn't grab a good blanket to hold him in, so I was thankful for this blanket! And I loved a little logo that they had on it, quoting 3 Nephi where the Savior took the little children and blessed them. As I started to read that, I was thinking "Jesus healed them..." but no, it was blessed. We have been blessed by Jesus here. The children here are not all healed as we parents and caregivers might like, but we are all blessed in many ways. Back in the ICU, I took over rocking Peter. He and I are both blessed.

With the hiflo thing on his face, I wasn't able to nurse him, so same as last time, but it didn't felt as horrible since I was prepared.

After a few hours, and since I trusted the nurse to mother by baby, I decided to go home and get my tooth brush and computer.

And since I couldn't feed him I didn't really have to stay. So I left at 2:00 and said goodbye to this sad little face.

And when I got back at 4, his hi-flo thing was off and I was able to nurse him! Yay!

And then he had some cereal, and he's been a happier baby.

I got some dinner at the Ronald McDonald room again, I'm grateful for that organization! Spaghetti and salad, and I had a nice conversation with a mom there. When I got back, Peter had been moved out of the ICU! So it seems like good things happen when I leave! It seems like he's making a quick recovery like last time and there's a pretty good chance we'll be able to leave tomorrow, so I'm grateful for that. Logging off for now, I have been trying to sleep today without much success. I've basically been up since 2am except for uncomfortable naps in the chair. I tried to sleep a bit ago, but you can hear kids crying through the walls, it's like a house of horrors. So I've got this white noise on now and we'll see how this goes tonight, fingers crossed.