Sickness and Croup hits

The day before Halloween, Avery started feeling bad.  She had a fever and stayed home from school on Halloween day.  We went ahead with the festivities that night because she was feeling better.  She tried to go to school the next day but got sent home.  Thus began our long, awful next couple of weeks.

By the end of the week, Avery was feeling better so she went back to school on Thursday or Friday.  Right as she was going back to school, Chloe got sick with a fever and what turned out to be our family's first case of croup.  

Once we figured out that she had croup, I took Colin and Avery to my parents to try to keep him healthy.  By the end of the day, Colin already started sounding hoarse.  It progressed and the next day he was sounding horrible!  As the evening rolled on, his breathing was labored and he had stridor.  I called the on-call nurse line.  She listened to Colin breathing and told me to take him to the ER immediately.  I got him packed up and raced to get there.  Bill had to stay with the girls because Chloe was still not well.

You would never know from this picture that he was struggling to breathe.  This was taken right before I called the nurse.

Right as I pulled in to the St. Luke's ER parking lot, his breathing started to scare me.  I rushed in and they pretty immediately took him back to a room.  By then, he had a high fever and retractions between his ribs.  I don't think I realized just how serious the situation was until that point.

They gave him an oral steroid and a breathing treatment.  It definitely helped but did not get rid of the stridor.  They gave a second one less than two hours later and told me that if it didn't get rid of it then we would have to be admitted to Texas Children's Hospital.  Thankfully my mom was able to meet me at the hospital.  It was terrifying having my sweet 6 month old baby in distress.

The doctor gave Colin a good amount of time to see if the second treatment worked before making the decision.  His breathing got much more stable and by 1 am we were free to leave!

The whole experience was terrifying.  I just hate that my poor boy is exposed to so much at such a young age but I guess that's what happens when you have two older siblings in school.  I slept in his room that night (meaning I got almost no sleep).  The steroid given at the hospital is made to last for three days and by the end of that time he was doing much better.  

Our trip to DisneyWorld was just a week after the hospital visit.  Thankfully, it happened when it did so that we were all ready for the exciting trip!