For the past couple of weeks, I've been a little bit sick. I was pleased when more than a week went by and Eddie had not caught it. Then, at 12:30 AM on Saturday morning, I heard a strange noise. You mothers out there will appreciate my super-sonic hearing when it comes to Eddie noises in the night. The slightest noise from him wakes me up, even though he's in his own room. Upon investigating the noise, I found that Eddie had a bit of a cough. I didn't think too much of it and we all went back to sleep. When we woke up that morning, the cough was much worse. He sounded horrible!
Of course this all had to happen on a Saturday, when we couldn't simply call the pediatrician for advice. I looked online to find that KidsCare at our clinic doesn't open until noon on Saturdays. I was a little concerned about taking him to the Instacare since I thought I was being a paranoid first-time mom. But, as Dave and I discussed our options and Ed attempted to hack up a lung, we decided to just take him in.
To the Instacare we went.
The doctor came in and asked a few questions. He seemed to be ruling things out until he heard Ed's cough. He immediately said, "yep, he has croup." I had no idea what that meant, but it sure sounds serious. The doctor explained that croup is just a viral infection (like influenza) that settles in the throat, which causes problems for people with very small throats. So it inflames the windpipe and the vocal chords, leading to a very characteristic, barking cough. So they gave him some steroids and had me hold the nebulizer in front of his face for ten minutes, then sent us home.
Since then, he's been slowly improving. Lucky for us, his nasty cough is now accompanied by an incredibly runny nose and a low fever. I guess that means his body is fighting off the infection. I hope it hurries. I also hope Eddie hurries and learns to blow his nose. It would save us both a lot of trauma wrestling with the bulb syringe.
No comments:
Post a Comment