Croup

Sunday morning, Ryan woke up with an unusual fever.  He had no other symptoms and as soon as we gave him Motrin, he seemed fine.  After his afternoon nap, he developed a hoarse voice and a slight, barking cough.  Again, after some Motrin, everything seemed fine.  I thought maybe we were in for another ear infection.  Well, at midnight, I woke up to a horrible barking cough and him sobbing, which made the cough worse.  When I picked him up, I noticed he was burning with fever.  I put him in a lukewarm bath, gave him some Motrin, and tried to calm him down so he could breathe.  After he cooled off enough, I stayed up another hour rocking him.   His breathing got better as did his fever, so I put him back to bed.  I called Dr. Shah first thing in the morning and made an appointment for 12:30, which was the first available.  Things didn't seem too horrible at first.  He was sick, but not worrisome.  Around 9:30 he started asking to go to the doctor.  A little while after that, he curled up on the couch, and stopped talking.  I wanted to go straight to urgent care, but thought that he could hold out til our appointment.  I started taking him into the bathroom and steaming it up, letting him breathe the moist air, hoping it would make him feel better.  As soon as Dr. Shah saw him, he said it was croup.  He said we needed to go straight to the E.R. for a breathing treatment.  At this point, Ryan was burning with fever and struggling for each breath.  I was scared.  Phil met us at the E.R., which was a welcome sight.  They saw us quickly.  The doctors were extremely nice and helpful.   They gave him Motrin, Tylenol, a breathing treatment, and a steroid through an I.V.  He was exhausted at this point, but really handled everything well.  He had some chest x-rays done, and said, "cheese," for his "pictures."  When he could breathe again, he ate his sucker from Dr. Shah.


He then fell asleep immediately and slept for the next few hours.  

They continued to monitor his breathing, and his fever, which both began to improve.

Around 6pm, they felt that he was doing well enough and decided they would discharge us around 7pm.



He was happy to go home, but realized he hadn't got to go to Grandma Net's, as is usual on Mondays, and wanted to go see her and get Rita, so we knew he was doing better.  

He had a really uneventful night and is doing much better today.  We'll see Dr. Shah this evening to make sure things are on the up and up.  For those of you who knew what was going on yesterday, thank you for your prayers.