my-speck

So I was in the middle of writing a rather staid blog post last night about the state of the kitchen and other of life’s happenings, when we heard you wake up and start coughing.  Which then very quickly progressed to a rasping, choking, vomiting-but-can’t sound.

Rushed in, ripped open your clothes and had a look at you in the light and you were most definitely very upset and struggling to get breath in.  Getting some in, but labouring and not happy.

So, we made sure you were breathing enough, then tried to calm you down as we threw some clothes on and jumped in the car.  By this stage your coughing/difficulty breathing fit was over, so we drove the 4 minutes to the emergency department at the hospital and had a chat to the triage nurse on check-in.  I could hardly talk by that point as I was so upset and relieved that you were obviously ok (as you were talking again and looking a lot more chipper) that I kept almost bursting into tears each time she asked me a question about how you were and what had happened.  I think I had managed not to go into a blind panic at home with your Dad but it all caught up with me a bit there.

Your colour returned over the next hour and a half while we waited and watched a procession of sicker-than-you babies and kids come in by parent / ambulance and started to feel kinda bad that we were sitting there potentially wasting the hospital’s time…  And feeling truly awful for the people who came through whose babies were rushed straight through with a lot of doctors in attendance, seeing the look on the parents’ faces as they realised that they weren’t overreacting by coming into emergency late on a Saturday night, it was quite serious…  But in our case trying to remember as we waited if it really was as bad as we had thought or whether we had overreacted.   But we both thought that with little children with any difficulty in breathing you should get in to see a doctor, so that is what we had done.

After not too-long a wait, we saw a lovely doctor who diagnosed you with croup.   The slightly strange thing in your case was that you had none of the runny-nose, feverish symptoms usually associated with one of the viruses that causes it, you had a great appetite all day and seemed fine apart from a slight cough.   But come night you had an attack of coughing and an episode.

So last night they gave you some oral steriods at the hospital, and sent us home with the warning to monitor you and call and ambulance if you had trouble breathing again, and a further warning that we may be faced with a hyperactive child as a side-effect of the steriods…  But, on arrival at home we had a snuggle in the big bed, you had a breastfeed, and you went to sleep fine, with no more coughing episodes or difficulties all night.

Today we’ve tried to keep it low-key, with some quiet play, lots of book-reading and singing (on our part) and water-drinking.  You seem ok (but so you did last night), so we’re hoping you’ll be all fine.

Tonight we’ve put you down and all seems fine – no laboured breathing, no coughing…However I suspect we’ll both not sleep the best, listening out …

Love you

mum

P.S. And yes, this is your first hospital visit since you were born.  There was one visit when you were in utero that was a bit comical in retrospect, but (thankfully) this was the largest scare we’ve had so far…