Croup-tastic

As the saying goes, there's a first time for everything, and last night was our first time heading to the ER at 1 a.m. with a sick kid. Elisa had been a bit sniffly and nursing a wee cough for a day or so, but the low-grade fever came on just after nap time yesterday. With a dose of Motrin, she seemed good to go and we enjoyed an evening with friends during which she played and ate normally. We got home a couple of hours past her usual bed time, but she went down just fine and that was it. My head hit the pillow around 11:30 p.m. and I was ready for bed. By 12:30 a.m., however, Elisa had woken up a couple of times and was now burning up. Her temp was just over 102 F and I wasn't liking the wheezing sound coming in between her cries. It didn't immediately hit me that this was something more than a cold, but I tried to think through my options. I started running a hot shower and Elisa folded up into me and slept as I rocked her back and forth in the steam. Returning to her room, she couldn't stay down and I knew this night was just beginning.

I called the pediatrician on-duty and she was extremely helpful and willing to listen via phone to Elisa's increasingly noisy congestion. Then came the verdict: croup. And a decision was made to get her to a pediatric ER in the city. When things like this happen, I sometimes feel like my mind is a few steps behind my emotions as I try to gauge the situation and imagine all the possible scenarios playing out. Kind of like heading off to the hospital in labor, I was racked with the idea that maybe if we just stayed put for a bit longer, this would turn out better. Maybe we could do without all that noise and light and craziness in the wee small hours of the morning. But another part of me--let's call it the mothering instinct--knew that I was not okay staying home. Elisa was laboring to breathe and when she cried or got choked up, it produced in me the kind of stomach turning anxiety that told me I had to get her checked out just to relieve my mind. And so we were off.

Without a doubt, having a sick kid changes everything. It brings out all the insecurities of parenting and makes your heart ache with sympathy for their tiny fevered brow. It makes you want to beat the stupid doctor who after hearing Elisa cry and bark and whimper for 5 minutes, declared, "Well, she sounds good." Good? Are you high? When I asked for clarification, she offered that it was in fact croup, but that there was no stridor. Oh, right. Okay, well, silly me, let me get out of your hair. Wait, what? What the hell is stridor? So when I asked about the barking and that noise--that kind of gasping, rattly, not-breathing-at-the-moment sound--the doctor said that this wasn't it. So, keep up the steam baths and (my personal fave) take her around the block in the cold night air. Yeah, okay, I thought, why didn't I think of that myself? Luckily, our pediatrician didn't like this answer either and offered to meet me in the morning at the office. We returned home with a sleeping girl in tow and were relieved when she stayed down from 3:30 a.m. until 5 a.m. With just a little more prodding, she slept through until 9:30 a.m. with scattered fits of crying and coughing. But it wasn't enough to wake her completely, so we got a much better night than either Nacho or I expected.

Today after our appointment, we started her on a three-day course of oral steroids and the difference this evening is palpable. Her cries are still sweetly pathetic, but she isn't wheezing with every sob and cough. You never know how the night will go, but I am guessing that it can't be much worse than a 3-hour detour through the ER shuffle. At least here we know what a bedside manner is.