Croup and a visit to the Hospital

I have heard of croup before, but we have never “dealt” with it personally until this weekend! On Friday night Elijah slept almost 12 hours straight…which is unusual for him, but he didn’t seem to have anything wrong with him so I dismissed it. We had borrowed my dad’s power washer so that we could clean the outside of the house and started that project sometime around noon.

Elijah had gone down for another nap at that time so I was in and out of the house all afternoon helping Dominic and checking on Elijah. After another 3 ½ hours I started to get concerned and went in to check on him and noticed that he was very warm. He had a fever of 102.7 so I gave him some Tylenol and a bottle and he just rested in our living room.

By about 5:30pm I checked his temp again and he still had a higher fever and was getting really irritable. He was putting his hand on his ears and didn’t want me to touch them so I thought that he might have the starts of an ear infection. I got cleaned up and he and Gabriel and I headed up to Sioux Falls to have him checked out.

I had heard him coughing a few times but didn’t think much of it and thought it was something tied to the ear infections. We got him started on the antibiotics for his ear and we went back home. Later that evening, he was tired and crabby and was coughing a little more. It sounded like he needed to clear his throat and cough some junk up and just couldn’t.

I had mentioned to Dominic that I was worried about him and that I would likely sleep out in the living room with him just to keep an eye on him. He fell asleep on his tummy on our living room floor while we watched a movie.

Around 11pm or so I went over to him just to feel his forehead and noticed that he was really hot. When I took his temp it read 103.3 and then I tried it again and it was 104.1. I knew that something was really wrong. Dominic went and turned him over and it was then that we could hear that he was really struggling to breathe – you could also see it in his body.

I was scared and called my dad to see what he thought we should do – I started crying so Dominic had to talk to him. We decided to bring him up to the ER in Sioux Falls and have him seen. So we woke up Gabriel and headed, very quickly into town.

They got us in right away and immediately gave him a couple of nebulizer treatments that helped with his breathing. They did a chest x-ray and then gave him some steroids. Funny story about that….the oral steroids made his tummy really upset and he threw up right away. The nurse told us to push the red button if he threw up again and they would give him a shot of steroids. So about 5 minutes later he threw up again and I ask Dominic if he could see the call light deal and all we can find is a red button on the wall that says “Staff Assist”. So he tells me to push that.

The “Staff Assist” button doesn’t call the nurse…it calls the WHOLE emergency department. 2 nurses, the doctor, the security guard and the flight med tech all came running within seconds to come to our aid. All except the nurse that told us to push the call light!! We were pretty embarrassed….they showed us where the actual call button was….it was NOT where it typically is on the bed. I think they understood…and Dominic and I had a good laugh over it!!

So after a few hours – at 3am - we were admitted to stay in the hospital. Elijah didn’t sleep well there and needed to be held the whole time. It was a LONG day. But the steroids really helped to bring down his wheezing and coughing and we were finally released to go home around 3pm on Sunday afternoon.

He is doing much better today. He is still pretty fussy, but his breathing has improved a ton and we are so thankful that he got the help he needed when he did. A very scary situation but it could have been a lot worse. We are just thankful for the hospital staff that helped him and that my parents were available to have Gabriel “sleep over” while we spent the day with Elijah. God was watching over us on Saturday night and I was reminded that Elijah is His son first and so I just had to trust that everything would be ok.

Thanks to those that prayed for us – hopefully the next time I am in the hospital it is to deliver this babe #4…in late December!! Nice staff, but I don’t want to make a habit out of visiting there!!