First Trip to the Emergency Room

Well, at 3 years, 10 months and 5 days old, Little Man made his first trip to the Emergency Room. It was the middle of the night on Tuesday, October 20. He'd gone to bed without any problems and was feeling perfectly normal. The only sign of anything out of the ordinary was a slightly crusty nose Tuesday morning. However, he had absolutely no problems with it during the day. Around 2:00 AM Wednesday morning, he woke up in a panic and unable to breathe very well. Between gasping for air and coughing like a seal, it was quickly determined that he probably had Croup.

The first thing we did was try to get him calmed down. Then, we wrapped him in a blanket and took him outside in the cool air. Those two things helped quite a bit, but he still had labored breathing. So, we decided to make a trip to the ER for a breathing treatment of Epinephrine.

We got there and were seen right away. He was put in a room where we did a whole bunch of waiting! Apparently, he was 1 out of 4 kids there with Croup at the same time! They gave him the Epinephrine as well as a dose of Prednisone (steroid). They also took a chest x-ray, which came back okay. So, 2 hours later, we were sent home with the diagnosis of Croup and a prescription for 3 more days worth of Prednisone.

We got home and Little Man went back to sleep right away. Unfortunately, even though he was awake for over 2 hours in the night, he was still up by 7:00 AM! Blech!

Thankfully, that was the only signs of the Croup. He was perfectly fine on Wednesday; he ate normally and played normally. It was very weird; I definitely think it was a result of so many prayers for him! He did have a stuffy nose and slight junky cough, but nights were perfectly fine. The cough was completely gone within a few days and the stuffy nose cleared up about a week later.

At least it wasn't the H1N1 virus!!!!! (Knock on wood!)

Here are a couple of pictures from the ordeal: