Skip just got the dreaded croupy cough. We caught it early, nebbed him and gave him preflam, but his coughing frequency and sound was getting worse, so after bundling him up warmly, hubby has now taken him to the ER while I stay home with little Skip, who is also sporting a cough, although not a croupy one.
I would normally have been the one to take Skip, but I am under docs orders not to do any awkward lifting (like carrying a flopping gangly half asleep nearly 5 year old child) on account of the fact that I developed a small hernia after shifting stuff when we were moving.
We really have had a good long run without illness in the family, and given the small exclusive nature of Skips school, it has meant him staying healthier than last year at his old school.
Right, off to wait to hear what the doc says…
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So it turns out that the hoosband, has a bit more than an eye infection.
In fact he’s just gone for blood tests this morning. The doctor thinks that it may be something called Adenovirus, and they’ve drawn bloods to *hopefully* rule that out. The thing that scares me is that adenovirus, can cause acute respiratory infections in kids. Including croup. And Bronchitis.
Great.
(Googles quarantine tents)
Why *couldn’t* it just be the damn sniffles?
BUGGER!
Or a better idea would be to check out destin fl and book a holiday for just me and the kids. If we had the spare cash right now, I’d be dipping into it and going very, *very* far away, the hoosband, is big enough to take care of himself.
Hmpf!
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When, will my four year old out grow croup?
He’s just had the biggest attack I’ve seen in at least 2 years.
I was *that* scared.
He was so panicky and begging me to help him breathe (and refusing to take his preflam), that for the first time I cracked open our supply of adrenalin for the nebulizer, and nebbed him before getting the preflam in. (normally we give the preflam, and we nebulise him with pulmicort, and then go to the doctor to check he’s clear). Adrenaline generally buys you half an hour of time, to get him to a doctor, and it’s only used in extreme cases).
What terrifies me most, is that he had preflam last night, when he sounded like me was getting croupy (he has a runny nose right now, thanks to Spring time allergies). Our doctors always told us that it stays in the body for at least a week, so once he’s had it, he shouldn’t get worse.
Well he did.
Eventually I managed to calm him down, and we negotiated that he could go outside and take his preflam there. There are theories that cooler air can ease the swelling in the larynx helping the child to breathe easier. Bizarrely, steamy bathrooms seem to have the same effect, so it’s not really an exact science, but I wasn’t about to discuss theory, when my child was struggling to breathe right before my eyes.
Before you wonder what the hell I’m doing blogging, (and blathering on about Amish fireplaces), I’ve just received the text from hubby (whom I insisted rush him to the ER) to say that the doctors were nebbing him again, and making him wait an hour to check on his breathing again, so I feel okay sharing, now that the threat is mostly over.
Maybe it’s watching all this Greys Anatomy lately, but I totally felt like a cast member, or at least a doctor, cracking open the ampule of adrenalin, drawing it up into a syringe, adding saline the same way and firing up the neb. Of course I felt more like an intern on my first day, not knowing exactly what I was doing, but at least knowing that I had to act *now* and regardless of my belief (or lack thereof) in myself, I had-to-do-something-now.
I almost wish I’d never had that conversation with the pediatrician (not our regular one) about how serious croup can get, and she described for me trying to give a kid a tracheotomy but being unsuccessful, because the airways had swelled shut (basically you can make a hole in the airway, at the throat, but because it’s swelled shut, it doesn’t help). That is what is known as stage 4, when they’re starting to lose consciousness, from lack of oxygen. What Skippy had tonight was a very bad stage 2, bordering on stage 3 (because he was getting freaked out and frantic).
Stage 2 is a bad croupy cough, and stridor on inhalation. Stage three the stridor is on both inhalation and exhalation.
So again, WHEN exactly will my child outgrow this terrifying thing???? Can anybody tell me????
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I need your input today.
We’ve been going through a parenting issue lately (eh hem, who isn’t?) and I thought, well, let’s go ask the interwebz what *they* think!?
So I’m going to! Because you all have the answers…so please – opinions welcome!
So here’s the current ‘problem’…(or at least this first bit is just background info to put yooz all in the picture)
Skippy (my eldest who is four in just two weeks time) was prone to croup particularly between the ages of 1 and 2. Then we moved out here, and his attacks stopped being so frequent (they had been happening every 3-4 weeks) they now only happen once every 6-8 months, my point is basically that they’re very infrequent now, but they still happen. Occasionally. Rarely.
When his attacks were at their worst, they were very scary, and we’d regularly race to the ER for the requisite medical attention.
Now, two years on, we are veritable croup veterans, and we are kitted out with adrenalin and pulmicort in the fridge (for the nebulizer – which we now own too) as well as they bad tasting (life saving) preflam which I *always* keep stock of. The last attack Skip had, (stage 2: croupy cough, with stridor on inhalation) we got the preflam into him with no fuss (poor kid knows the drill by now) and after one pulmicort neb he was fine (breathing easily, no more stridor), so we only went to the doctor the next morning just to make sure he was all ok. Right – that’s all the background info – in a nutshell – he was prone to croup, rarely gets it now, and when he does, we sort him out here, and only head to the ER if he still has stridor after the nebulizer.
So fast forward to present day.
Hubby and I are practical people, and when Skippy gets so much as a runny nose we both go into ‘high alert mode’ knowing that a croup attack *could* be imminent, particularly if we’ve been experiencing average weather, and then the temperature plummets (Hello! Welcome to Cape Town Winters where you regularly experience 23deg C weather during the day, only to have the temp drop to 5deg C during the night!!).
Thankfully more often than not, we down grade from ‘high alert’ to ‘possible alert’ and then if the runny nose clears and he’s 100 percent again without anything happening, we go onto ‘low alert’.
However, and THIS IS THE THING I’VE BEEN TRYING TO GET TO FOR THE LAST 400 WORDS…during ‘high and possible alert’ modes, Skippy gets upgraded to the parental suite and hubby gets booted out to the spare bed (willingly). We do it this way, because I’m the one most likely to wake up, should Skippy suddenly get an attack and it takes me 0.2 seconds to react and have my wits about me (Really ya think? My husband is so sweet and amazing in so many ways, but crises at 2am? Not so good.) So Skippy gets to shack up with Mummy. (Mummy gets extra space to sleep as a result, but no one’s really in this for random perks okay?)
The problem sets in, when Skippy is better and now has to be downgraded to his own bed again.
It just aint happenin’ without a fight.
…and a moan…
…and ranting, raving, moaning, and gnashing of teeth, and tantrums, and wailings of monsters and scary curtains…etc
So suffice it to say that everytime this happens he’s become quite happy with his new sleeping arrangement and doesn’t want to change it.
Mommy’s bed has a TV at the end of it!
Mommy’s bed has a mattress with pocket coil springs!
Mommy’s room is just better in everyway than Skippy’s room because the curtains behave!
During the time he’s in the ‘parental suite’ his bedtime routine – is slick, easy and ridiculously quick.
A simple call of ‘Bedtime Skippy!’ has him pad through in his slippers and gown, pop them at the end of the bed, hop onto ‘Daddy’s side’ put his head on the pillow and I can count to three before he’s out like a light.
When the time comes to go back to his own room…it’s not quite the same.
It takes on average 30-40 minutes to get him to agree to go to his bedroom.
Then he says he can’t find it. Not even with the help of several gps systems can he be persuaded otherwise. This kid is *smart* y’all. I have trouble keeping on top of all his excuses, and more often than not have to resort to the perennial, “GO TO YOUR ROOM BECAUSE I SAID SO!!”.
He has a story.
He has another story.
He asks for water.
He cries that he’s scared and wants the light left on (he has a night light which stays on anyway – but he means the ‘big light’).
He gets out of bed.
He gets put back into bed, reassured and kissed goodnight.
Repeat the last two steps ad nauseum ad infinitum until we either a) give in (ha ha yes I know we’re the suckers here) or b) he just falls asleep from fighting with us and sleeps till around midnight at which point he comes to our room anyway and boots hubby to the spare bed. (we have no resistance at midnight).
No matter how many times he successfully goes to sleep in his own bed, he *still* finds his way into ours before the next morning, even if it’s at 5am.
So…we’re formulating a plan.
But first, I want your input…WHAT THE EFF ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO??
Do we:
a) keep insisting that he sleeps in his bed no matter what (including when in high alert mode?)
b) continue on in this fashion and miraculously hope it resolves itself (ha ha ha ha ha ha)
c) implement an amazingly novel solution, suggested by one of my parental expert readers who are about to leave a comment with a suggestion as to how to fix the problem
Tomorrow I’ll tell you what our plan is…and then you can tell me what you think of *that*.
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I was belting down a dark highway, with Skippy in tow, off to the hospital.
We count ourselves lucky that it’s only his second attack in the last 12 months. The 12 months before that, he had at least 2-3 attacks a month. I put it down to living so close to the Sea at the time. Plus they tend to grow out of it. Something to do with rapid temperature drops, and air pressure changes.
*Thank god they always grow out of it*
Anyway, thankfully my anally retentive self always keeps the right medication in the house, so I was able to administer that (it starts working within half an hour) before setting out to the hospital for the obligatory adrenaline nebulizer. We have a nebulizer here too, but it’s been so long since his last attack that the neb-meds had expired, and I know better than to give him expired meds.
After one neb at the hospital he still had a bit of stridor (the bark like cough and high pitched sound on inhalation), although it was much better, but they let him chill for a few minutes and then set up a second neb for him, this time with more saline, so that it took a bit longer and he could relax into it.
Just after setting up the second neb and leaving us to it, I heard someone else come into the ERs reception, a man (from what I could hear) who was saying that he had chest pain, and wasn’t feeling well.
Then All Hell Broke Loose
The nurse who had just handed me the neb was called away because the guy had apparently just collapsed right there in reception, and they were desperately trying to revive him.
We were in a room next door to where they were trying to re-suss him, and while I don’t think Skippy heard much because of the noise of the neb right by his face, I could hear everything.
I wanted to cry because I could hear all the frenzied talking between doctors and nurses, and the frantic beeping of the machines, and all I could think was “Damn – if that beeping is that guys heart rate, this is really serious!” Then it went quiet.
A short while later the doctor came back in to see how we were doing, and I had just said “He’s doing much better” when a nurse yelled for the doctor to come back and all hell broke loose again.
The crazy beeping, the ‘stat’ this and ‘iv’ that and every stupid crazy thing you see on ER.
Eventually after about 10 minutes, our neb had finished and we were just sitting there waiting for the nurse or doctor to give us the all clear to go home, when the nurse came in, and said to us if we felt okay we could go (which we did) and sorry for all the waiting because they’ve got a crisis on their hands. I said of course it was fine – and geez don’t worry about it and we went back to reception to sign out.
At the reception desk, I looked at the receptionist and said, “Geez hectic times in the ER hey?” and she looked back at me and whispered, “You won’t believe this, this guy just drove himself here, complained of chest pains and collapsed right there.”
“I heard, it sounded really scary!” I said.
“…and get this…” says the receptionist…”I just had to call his wife to tell her to come to the hospital, and she doesn’t want to come because she’s at home with her child. I had to say to her, LADY YOUR HUSBAND IS GOING TO DIE BRING YOUR CHILD AND I WILL LOOK AFTER HIM…and she still didn’t want to come.”
I left the ER in a total daze. Who does that? I don’t get humanity sometimes. The poor guy was only 50. I know this because I asked the receptionist. The freak in me had to go and ask her if she’d ever been on duty when somebody died, and she turned to me and said, “It’s getting worse. Smokers and Stress. People must wake up and look after themselves.”
I have a serious appointment with that Elliptical trainer today. Thankfully I stopped smoking before I tried to get pregnant with Skippy. But I have a lot of weight to lose.
…and I want to live.
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