A night in the ER

Last week was really rough. Jacob was diagnosed with strep throat Wednesday afternoon and we started his antibiotics so I thought he might start feeling better quickly. However, he woke up 3 times during his nap that afternoon and I could tell he was just miserable! Every time he coughed he just cringed. Poor fella. He perked up with Motrin, so I was hopeful that he might sleep at least 3 hour stretches overnight. Well, at 10:30, he was up coughing and crying and he scared us to death. He was having such a hard time breathing. He was struggling so much that his chest was heaving with each breath. Then he threw up a big ball of phlem. Uck! I was so scared to put him back down. So, we called the on-call pedi, which just happened to be our pedi (the one that diagnosed strep). We told her what was going on and basically, she suggested that we take him to the ER. So we did. Spent 3 hours there. I was sitting in the waiting room just feeling the germs closing in on me.....ewwww. Swine flu anyone?! Anyway, his fever was back up to 101 and he wouldn't take the Tylenol, so that won him a suppository. Yeah, didn't like that much. Can't say that I blame him. His O2 sats were in the low 90's, which they didn't really seem too worried about, but I'm thinking that can't be good. The term pneumonia came up, but his lungs still sounded clear, so he was just diagnosed with croup. So, he got a nebulizer treatment, a dose of steroids and a popsicle (used to bribe him to take the steroids). Oh, and the "best" part....they tested him for both flus. This involved sticking a tube about 3-4 inches up his nose, shooting some saline up there and then taking it back out (to get a sample of mucous)....He did NOT like that at all. It took 3 of us to hold him down....and it just broke my heart. He was negative for both, thank goodness! All in all, he was such a trooper and did very well. Probably better than I did. Thank God Kyle was there! We got home at 2:00am and he went on to bed pretty quickly. But, he was up at 7:00, ready to get up. I guess 5 hours straight is really good though, considering. He's definitely doing better now. The seal bark is gone and it's more of a normal cough now. He just took his last dose of antibiotics today. Thank goodness he's better. That was scarey and I don't want to go that again anytime soon.....or EVER!!