This past weekend marks the very first time that Rhett has been sick. Unfortunately, rather than starting off with a mild cold, the poor little guy got croup.
It started sometime last week, just a mild, occasional cough. No big deal.
Boy, was I ever wrong!
On Saturday night, he had woken up and as I was walking into his room to nurse him, he started coughing. But this cough was different. It was more like a bark. I picked him up out of his crib, nursed him and put him back to sleep.
On Sunday afternoon, I put him down for a nap and decided to take a nap myself as I was quite tired. Next thing I know, it is almost two hours later and I wake up to Bryan yelling my name from the living room. I get up and go out to see what he wants. He is sitting on the couch holding Rhett who had just thrown up all over himself and Bryan. We get Rhett out of his clothes and gave him a bath. Once he was dressed again, I nursed him and as soon as he was done eating, I sat him up and he threw up again all of himself, me and the couch. Got him changed again, only to have him throw up all over himself and me AGAIN!!! Honestly, I am not even sure what connection the vomiting has with croup, but it is just part of the timeline of events.
As the day went on, Rhett's cough seemed to be slowing getting worse and he was really beginning to look unwell. Fast forward to 2:30 a.m. when I heard Rhett wake up. I went into his room to find him crying and coughing (or barking, because that is what is sounded like). At this point, I couldn't seem to do anything to console him. He just continued to cry and cough an cry some more. Bryan woke up to help out. We turned the shower on and we took him into the bathroom to see if the steam would help. Well, it did, but the relief was short lived and this is also when I realized that Rhett was running a bit of a fever.
Not knowing what to do to give Rhett some relief or to console him, Bryan suggested that we call Health Link to see what they might suggest. Bryan got on the phone and described Rhett's symptoms to the Health Link nurse. She suggested that we go to the hospital to have him looked over by a doctor. Since we figured that it is better to over react than under react, we put Rhett into his car seat and headed to the emergency room at shortly after 3 a.m.
Thankfully the emergency was almost completely empty and we were looked after promptly. The nurse took Rhett's vitals and moved to a room where we waited for the doctor. This was the longest part even though it was probably only 40 minutes which I'm sure is pretty good in terms of normal wait times in an emergency room. Finally the doctor came in to assess Rhett. He listened to his breathing, checked his throat and ears and determined that Rhett had croup (which I had already deducted). He explained that as bad as it sounded, it was not bad enough for Rhett to be admitted but he would give him a steroid medication to help him breathe easier and suggested that we just give him some infant acetaminophen for the fever. We were in and out in just over an hour.
Waiting for the doctor to come.
It is now a few days later and Rhett is still sick but he has definitely improved. His cough still sounds terrible but he seems to be coughing less frequently each day and his spirits seem to be improving. Hopefully my sweet little man will kick this viruses butt soon so he can be healthy and happy again!!!
My happy boy today. Still sick, but smiling!!
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