Well last night we had quite the scare with Elise. We noticed on Saturday a nasty cough she had, Sarah even mentioned it sounded like Croup, but Elise had battled it before and been just fine, so we didn't think much of it. She was still running and jumping around the house just like always.
Well, Saturday night (actually Sunday morning) Elise wakes up with a serious cry. Sarah immediately jumps out of bed and the next thing I know I hear water running in the bathroom. I figured Elise threw up and is getting an impromptu bath. So I decide to be a good husband and go clean up whatever's on the bed. However, when I go to Elise's room, there's no throw up. So I head to the bathroom and Sarah has Elise in her arms and the shower going on full hot and Elise is fighting just to breathe. Sarah looks at me and says, "We gotta go to the ER, she can't breathe." I see Elise struggling to even breathe & immediately the 2 of us are throwing on clothes and in the car. I figure it took 30 seconds for us to get out the door. By the time we arrive at the ER, the cold air has helped a bit and she's no longer really struggling to breathe, but still definitely not breathing easy. (Turns out the hot air from the shower wasn't good and the cold air in the car was).
Then the doc comes in and looks at Elise and after listening to her breathing comments that she's really struggling to breathe. Then things get tense. The doc asks how long she's had the cough, being 3:30am Sunday, I say since yesterday, inferring since Saturday. Sarah says, no she got it today, really meaning Saturday. The doc in the meantime is getting more concerned about her breathing and not getting a straight answer out of us gets panicky and demands to know exactly when the coughing started. We quickly figure out we both mean Saturday and that seems to calm the doc a bit. So then they give her some oral steroids of some sort and then put her on a breathing apparatus breathing EpiPed I believe. Basically it speeds up her heart rate, and gets her endorphins going a bit so she can fight it.
But it came down to being a croup attack. The ER nurse suggested cold air and humidity. He said driving around town with the windows down would've done her a lot of good, but admitted that it was pretty bad and it was good we got her in to the ER.
Pretty scary to say the least. As a parent, you just handle it as the time comes, but it takes a toll on you. Later when I told my Dad what happened, I couldn't keep from getting emotional telling him about it and I thought I was doing just fine...
Sooo, that's our ER story for this weekend.
Thank goodness for docs,
Tim.
