A noise I never like to hear...

At 12:40 am I was awoken by a sound that I always dread hearing coming from Ethan's room...the sound of croup. I ran to his room and he was crying and making all sorts of unpleasant noises while breathing along with a cough that sounded like it ripping it throat to pieces. I picked him up, grabbed my bathrobe and a cold glass of water for Ethan, and ran for the front door. Thankfully it was a cool night with a breeze. I had him start taking deep breaths. The hardest part was that he was so upset that he might have to go to ER and he was crying so loud that we couldn't stay outside long. (His crying and harsh cough were echoing throughout the neighborhood. Anyone with their windows open, heard him!)

We eventually made our way back inside to the house only to go sit in a very steamy bathroom. By now, Jason was awake and fully aware of what was happening and took Ethan into the bathroom so I could get a few other things. We both got the "gut feeling" that he was going to need something other than the cold/steam treatments to help get him through this. Thankfully, our doctor had given us the medication to keep on hand. I just knew that if I didn't get it in him we would be on our way to ER. So, I crushed the 5 little pills scooped them up with yogurt and fed Ethan what he thought was yogurt. He ate it like a champ. I took over with Ethan so Jason could at least try to go back to sleep...he had to be up early for work.

5 minutes in that bathroom and I was nothing but a sweaty mess but it's worth it for my baby to be able to breath! Ethan kept saying over and over, "Mommy, I don't think this is a good plan. I just want to go to bed. I just want to feel better." I tried to convince him that Mommy's plan was going to work. And then he says, "Mommy, you just need to give me my medicine. That's what the doctor would do." I informed him that when he ate his two bites of yogurt that the medicine was hiding on the spoon and that he already took his medicine, we just needed a few more minutes for it to start working. His eyes got big, he wrapped his arms around me and said, "Thank you mommy, thank you! Now can I go to bed." He didn't like to hear that we had a few more minutes in that very warm and steamy bathroom and then had to go back outside.

Things eventually settled down enough after our second visit outside for me to feel comfortable putting him back to bed. I pulled out the humidifier and have had that going all night. Now, I get to call the doctor's office, of course our doc is out on vacation, and explain everything and let them know that we will be needing another prescription for the medication. I just hope that our nurse is in the office and that I can talk to her. She will be able to explain to the on-call that we don't need to be seen for this prescription.

So much for growing out of croup by age 5! (Every doctor we have seen for croup has told us, "Once he's 5, he should be grown out of this." Not Ethan!) I am really hoping that tonight will be uneventful and that we will all get some good sleep. Too bad there's no time for a nap today.