Croup

A week or so ago, on Friday night, Cameron woke up with a horrible cough. I stumbled into his room at around 12:30, telling him to calm down and take a deep breath. As I began to emerge from my sleepy haze, I realized that he could not calm down or take a deep breath. He was in a constant cycle of; *cough cough cough GASP* *cough cough cough GASP*.



I picked him up and took him outside into the cool, damp night air to help him open up and get his breath. As we stood on the porch his cough was not letting up. I brought him back into the kitchen to pour him some juice and call my mom. I handed him his juice, he has still not had a break in the cough. He can't drink his juice, not even a sip the coughing is constant and I am getting scared.



With my mom on the way I took him into the bathroom and turned on the hot shower hoping that would help calm his cough. It did not. Mom arrived, walked into the bathroom, listened to his chest, and said "take him to the ER now". She would later tell me what I was not able to see, I guess because I had been looking at him up close for better than 10 minutes, I had not recognized that he was pale and his eyes were swelling from struggling for air. She also had heard that he was moving next to no air through his lungs.



As we blew into the ER, the triage nurse saw that he was still struggling for air, though his cough had finally subsided, he was still retracting as he breathed and was noisy while gasping for air. She took him from my hands and straight into a room, his oxygen stats were only 87 upon arrival. This had been one of the scariest experiences of my parenting life, standing there helpless while my baby coughed and gasped was terrifying. That feeling that there was nothing I could do to help him was sickening.



While we were at the ER he was treated with two breathing treatments and an injection of steroids, diagnosed with croup and sent home. Now starts the comical part of this story........



Cameron was sent home with steroid therapy to be given twice a day for four days. Well....when an already very busy 5 year old boy is treated with sterriods...well....lets just say 'hyper' is an understatement. To prove this, I will leave you with some humor. This is MA with a steroid hyped up Cameron attached to his leg. After trying unsuccessfully to shake him off several times, he gave up and just let him hang there....for 30 minutes.