Croup

Saturday Ryler woke up with a Raspy Voice, but throughout the day it came and went.
I figured he was probably congested & possibly getting sick, but he was very happy all day & we even decided to go out with friends to movie & dinner. 

When I picked up Ryler from my parent's house, he sounded worse & before we left he started a barking cough. We headed home & he fell asleep within seconds. When we got home, Matt tried to lay him down in his crib & he woke up coughing so much, that he could hardly breathe. 

We decided it would be best to take him to Goodnight Pediatrics & see if they could give him a breathing treatment. 

We got there about 10:30pm, got right in & they immediately gave him an oral steroid to reduce swelling in his throat & started him on a breathing treatment. The breathing treatment was supposed to help with immediate relief, but it did not...so after monitoring him off and on for about 1 1/2 hrs, she came in and said that she was going to make arrangements for an ambulance to take him to the Emergency Room. At this point, they also took his temperature & it was 101.5, so they gave him Motrin to reduce his fever.

I made the decision to drive him myself. I figured that I had been sitting there with him for the past 1 1/2 hrs & wasn't worried about a 10 minute drive. We got to Banner Desert Children's Emergency Room & while signing him in, a nurse walked by & immediately stopped when she heard Ry's breathing. Ryler was sleeping in the stroller, she back tracked her steps, listened to his lungs & immediately grabbed a nurse to put us in a room. I felt bad that there were people that had been waiting hours, but Goodnight Ped's had called ahead & told them we were coming & they were obviously worried about his condition.

There biggest concern with him was that even when sleeping or resting, his breathing was still not normal. Often times with Croup, it gets worse at night or when they get agitated, but when they are resting, they are fine. His resting breathing was still not regular & they ordered another breathing treatment. The nurse suggested that we get comfortable, because more than likely they would admit him for 24 hours, since he had needed 2 breathing treatments in such a short amount of time.

How do you "get comfortable" in a hospital? 

I would finally get him to sleep & a nurse would need to check his vitals, which is why we ended up watching Barney at 3am ...

Ryler NEVER watches TV. He won't even sit still for 2 minutes, but he was SO EXHAUSTED & was so good & just layed in bed, although he did tryto rip that thing off his toe, every couple of minutes;)

After the 2nd breathing treatment, they monitored him for 2 hours & the nurse was debating whether to admit him or not. At this point, he had fallen to sleep, so he sounded MUCH BETTER, but his breathing was still raspy. She went to get the Dr to check on him and after another check, he decided to send us home! He had improved over the past 7 hours & that is what they wanted. We got home about 5am today(Sunday) & both of us were so exhausted, we crashed. 

He slept pretty good, he still does not sound great today &  we are just trying to take it easy today. They figure it will get bad again tonight, but hopefully it will be better than the crazy night we had lastnight!

POOR BOY!

I really hope he is feeling better SOON!