Friday afternoon, Cade rather suddenly came down with a high fever and sore throat. He would just lay on the couch and not move (and if you know Little Antsy-Always Moving My Body-Full of Energy-Never Still-Cade, that is not like him at all). He also wouldn't eat anything and kept complaining about his throat. Since those were his only symptoms, I just knew he had strep throat. I talked to my dad about it, and he brought home a test that night. It didn't show anything, but those tests aren't always accurate. So since I was really paranoid about Cade actually having strep and it going untreated, we went ahead and got him the antibiotics and sent him to bed.
The next morning, Cade woke up breathing kind of hard and loud. It worried me so we took him over to my parents house. My dad listened to him and said it wasn't in his lungs, and his throat must be swelling a little bit from the strep but the antibiotics will take care of it. Cade seemed to be breathing a little better as the day went on so I stopped worrying about it.
When Cade woke up from his nap that afternoon, however, he was having major difficulty breathing, and he started to panic (which made it worse). Chase tried to calm him down, but Cade was still struggling. We didn't know what to do so we immediately got in the car to take him to the Pediatric ER. When we got there, one of the nurses doing the paperwork in the waiting room heard him wheezing and got us back to see a nurse rather quickly. They immediately told us it was croup (I was glad to know what the problem was so quickly), which I was surprised because the little bit I did know about croup, you have a nasty cough, and Cade wasn't coughing at all (that came the next day).
We were taken to a room where Cade received breathing treatments, a steroid medicine to help with the swelling, and other meds for his 103.7 fever. Poor, pitiful Cade, as miserable as he was, was so sweet and so good the entire time we were at the hospital. He never cried or whined at anything the nurses or doctor did to him. He lay still and would just whisper in his horse voice, "Ok" or "Yes" or "Thank You". The respiratory nurse told him that he was her best patient that day.
We were taken to a room where Cade received breathing treatments, a steroid medicine to help with the swelling, and other meds for his 103.7 fever. Poor, pitiful Cade, as miserable as he was, was so sweet and so good the entire time we were at the hospital. He never cried or whined at anything the nurses or doctor did to him. He lay still and would just whisper in his horse voice, "Ok" or "Yes" or "Thank You". The respiratory nurse told him that he was her best patient that day.
We were glad that he responded well to the breathing treatments. If he had to get one more he would have been admitted into the hospital.
What was Cade's favorite part about his hospital visit? Popsicles. After he had his first breathing treatment and the steroid medicine, the respiratory nurse asked him if he would like a popsicle. Cade lit up (well, as much as he could at that point) and excitedly whispered, "YES". After he devoured that purple popsicle and had the 2nd breathing treatment, our regular nurse came in and asked him if he'd like a popsicle. He was so excited that he was being offered another popsicle. He asked for green. A little while later, there was a shift change and we had a new nurse. All she did was walk in the door, and Cade (feeling much better by now) blurted out, "Can I have a red popsicle?"
After 2 breathing treatments, meds, Chick-fil-a, coloring some fun pictures, and three popsicles later, Cade was feeling and breathing much better and started getting his energy back.
Then we were able to come home. I must say that our experience at the Pediatric ER at Huntsville Hospital for Women and Children was the best I have ever experienced. The staff was extremely friendly, and they took very good care of us.
Since the doctor told us that croup typically gets bad in the middle of the night and children often wake up with difficulty breathing, I made Cade sleep in the bed with me that night. I was not about to leave him alone, and I literally did not get any sleep.
(Might I add that my good little boy does not get off of his bed, ever. He yells for us in the morning, and we come and get him. So during this whole ordeal, we finally taught Cade that he could get out of his bed all by himself and to come get us if he doesn't feel good or can't breathe. It took him awhile, but he's finally figured out that it's okay to get out of bed on his own. Well, that backfired the other day, when I woke up at 5:30am to find him in the kitchen playing games on the computer. And it looked like he'd been awake for awhile. Awesome.)
The next night, Reece and I come down with fevers and all the other croup junk followed. It took about 6-7 days for Cade and I to get over it and a little longer for Reece. Luckily, Reece's breathing didn't get as bad as Cade's. The next week, Chase came down with it. It's been lovely.
I am finally glad to say our house is officially rid of the croup. See ya later croup. I don't ever want to see you again.
