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Friday, October 04, 2013

Let's all go to the ER!

As if giant hives weren't enough, Avery came home from day care a while ago with an adorable little croaky voice and a pretty listless personality.  It was a bit concerning and got worse when he just laid around all evening, looked exhausted, and started wheezing.  It got a MUCH more concerning when he had a coughing fit in which he was trying to cough, cry, vomit, and breathe all at once.  (Hey, he's a multi-tasker like his mom!)  So I tried to call my neighbor to watch Cassidy - no answer.  Then I realized that I really don't have good contacts on base of folks that I can rely on in situations like this.  All my close friends live off-base.  Boo.

So, off to the ER we went!  No diapers, just a bottle halfway filled with juice for Cassidy, no socks on Avery, no coats.  I was definitely prepared.  Of course, Avery didn't want to walk (who can blame him?) so I dragged in Cassidy (asleep in her car seat) and lugged in a big ole toddler to the ER on base, filled out a few papers and we got in pretty quick.

I had already called my mother-in-law, so I knew it was croup, but the coughing fit freaked me out to where I didn't want to wait for a doc's appointment.  The ER confirmed it was croup and started in on him.

He was a total trooper.  Probably because he was too tired and upset to protest.  He took the little heart monitor on his toe, he let them put the bracelet on, and he even allowed the blood pressure cuff to stay on his arm and blow up every once in a while (we called it the "balloon on his arm!").  He took the syringe (in the mouth) of steroids to open his airway ("it's yucky!") and the fever meds ("this one is yummy!") and even liked the little mist mask they put on him.

Has anyone ever looked so pathetic and sad??
 Cassidy, not to let the attention stray too long, decided to wake up and demand to be held, walked around, and allowed to touch dangerous things . She did not enjoy the 2 hours I walked her up and down trying to get her to go back to sleep (it was easily midnight by this point) and I ALSO DID NOT ENJOY THIS.  Avery laid around, played on the iPod, and finally fell asleep where he promptly peed through his diaper. Twice.  Hey, I was giving him fluids!!

Fun bonding time
 Cassidy finally zonked, Avery was out, and I was waiting for SOMEONE to release us and dozed off myself.  Finally after three hours being there, we got released.  Our medical team was really nice, but the night shift must get to you.  We had conversations like this:

Doctor(?) guy: Oh, your kids are asleep
Me: Well, it is like 5 hours past their bedtime.

Doctor(?) guy: Do you want stickers?  I can get them stickers!!
Me: Well, it's almost 2am - I'm not sure they really care that much

Anyway, I lugged a limp and exhausted Avery, a heavy and recently awake Cassidy in her car seat, and my sleepy self to the car.  No one had coats, Avery was sans pants.  It was a pretty awesome Supermom moment.  To make Avery feel better, I even let him ride in the front seat (calm down, everyone, it's a 90 second drive to our house). 

Got them home, sent her to bed, sent him to bed with a a cold mist humidifier, then realized I was wide awake at 2am, so I finished watching my DVRed Emmys, emailed my boss that I was planning on staying home to monitor Avery and zonked out.  Too bad there's a chicken pox vaccine now, or I'd be anxiously awaiting that as well!

1 comment:

Corrie said...

Oh gosh this sounds horrible! Our time with croup has been much easier. Just the yucky steroids and then they send us home. We did go to Urgent Care instead of the ER though. Thank goodness!