Oh crap...I mean, Oh Croup

Last night I made my first midnight dash to the ER with my baby in the backseat. Case woke up at 2 am coughing and gasping for air. Initially I thought he was choking on something. I whopped him on the back, looked up his nose and stuck my finger down his throat. I paced around the room a couple seconds trying to figure out what to do and after my initial 3 minute assessment I decided there was no reason he should be gasping so I threw him in the car seat and we were off to the ER. Of course Cody is out of town and I had to make all these decisions on my own. On our journey I ran 2 red lights and only slowed down to 70 mph to check for oncoming traffic before I ran my red lights. There is nothing scarier than the thoughts that run through you head as your driving to the hospital with a gasping baby in the backseat. All the sudden you really realize you won’t be able to live if anything ever happened to him. I only got teary once for about 5 seconds and then sucked it up and put the peddle to the meddle.

The final diagnosis was he had Croup which is a viral infection that restricts airway. Croup typically occurs suddenly in the night, during winter when the air is dry and symptomatically looks like gasping and coughing. All and all we spent about 3 hours at the hospital where he received a couple breathing treatments, took some medicine and they monitored oxygen levels. I left the house in such a hurry I didn’t even have socks on let alone proper entertainment for my youngin during those long boring hours. They really should have flat screens in those hospital rooms. However I was highly entertained by the drunk man in the next room who yelled the entire visit, ‘I’m dying. I’m dying. I’ll be dead soon.” He was still dying when we left 3 hours later and no one seemed too concerned.

Anywhoo, I have a sicky-poo tired baby on my hands and I am exhausted. He has been super tired from the long night but won’t go to sleep on his own because he doesn’t feel well. So I have spent my entire day sitting very still with a sleeping baby in the crook of my arm. He went to sleep in his car seat so I am headed off to bed. I wish all of you good night and good health!