Jack and Sam played at Lili's house today. She went to the kitchen to get Jack's lunch bottle and came back to find him like this. Poor guy! I had been hoping he wouldn't be our next croup victim, but with his little voice getting hoarse and him feeling so bad today, I felt like there was no way we had avoided it.
It all started late Sunday night. Adam and I were just about asleep and heard the strangest sounds coming from Sam's monitor. Of course we both flew straight out of bed and ran to his room. He was still sound asleep but gasping for air. Scary! Adam picked him up out of bed and sat him up straight to see if that would help. I was about to freak out because I didn't know why my baby was having trouble breathing. He woke up some and kept gasping and when I tried to get him to talk to us all that came out was this loud, barking cough that I had NEVER heard in all of my twenty-seven years on this earth. It sounded like a seal! I ran to get him some water in hopes that would help. I knew that if this went on much longer we would be headed to the emergency room. By the time I got back with the water he had started breathing better but still had the very strange cough when he tried to talk. We decided to put him in the bed with us for the night so I could watch him.
Monday morning we saw Dr. Cook. I started describing his symptoms and the minute I said "barking cough" she said "croup." She commented that it usually only happens very late at night so that is why it was gone this morning and he wasn't able to cough for her to hear it. She gave him some steroids and said he should be better in 3-5 days. She told me I could stick his head in the freezer if he ever had another episode and to also watch little Jack carefully because it was highly contagious. From what she said, it is very dangerous for someone Jack's age and he would need to go straight to the emergency room if we heard one of those coughs from him.
This morning when Jack woke up he was congested and hadn't slept well last night. I was afraid it was all about to start with him but I knew Lili would keep a good eye on him. When I got this picture and heard he was getting hoarse I called the Children's Clinic. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call back from Dr. Sherwood herself telling me to definitely give Jack some of Sam's steroids because of the symptoms he was developing and the fact that he had been exposed. She didn't want us to have an episode with Jack tonight and surely didn't either!
Jack got his first dose a little while ago and I am hopeful that we won't experience any more scary nights of croup with either one of our sweet boys. Go away, croup!
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