Oh what a night...

Last night was quite the night. At four o'clock in the morning I wake up to Tyler yelling my name in a panicky voice saying to get in there. Now that voice can range from many things including Zach has gotten poop everywhere (I know this from experience), but it usually means something is going on and they need mom immediately to rectify the situation (which includes the poop incidence). After hearing my name and coming too I realize that I had heard other noises prior and I then hear Zach cough. My first reaction is, "Is he throwing up?" I had yelled out, because again experience has taught me that Zach coughs when he throws up. But then he coughs again and I make it to the bedroom and low and behold I knew instantly that Zach had croup. Unfortunately this bout truly narrowed his airways and Zach was having trouble breathing. I've learned about myself that I'm like my mother and even when I'm freaking out I still have the ability to remain calm in most situations when I am needed to. The first thing I told Tyler to do was take Zach outside to the cool air because that will help and I'll begin steaming up the bathroom. I hear them go outside and I put the shower on the highest heat possible and luckily it steamed up quickly enough. After 2 seconds outside Tyler heads back up saying, "I don't know how that helps because cold air always makes my asthma worse. I know it's different than asthma, but I don't know." My response was, "I can't tell you the answer. All I know is the past times I've researched it those are the two things they tell you to do!" I put Zach on my lap and we sat in the steamy bathroom for a while. His breathing improved and his coughing subsided a little, but after 20 minutes of that and Tyler and I were dying we decided to see how Zach was doing outside of the bathroom. Since it was almost 4:30 in the morning by now it was a debate of do we take him in right now or try to put him back to bed and fight the early Monday morning crowd of the pediatricians office? If he went back to bed I was going to sleep with him and I told Tyler we would need to go buy a warm air humidifier. After some thinking and listening to Zach still wheeze we decided just to take him in. As we were getting ready (taking our pajamas off) we listened to Zach attempt to talk to us and he was winded between each word. We knew it was good that we were going ahead and going. Instead of going down to the Hospital we went to a 24-hour emergency clinic. I told the lady my son has croup we just need to get some medicine for him. Luckily we were seen right away, but they still had to do a myriad of tests. Most of the things Zach was unfamiliar with and since he was basically in a hospital room his environment wasn't too inviting either. He hated the blood pressure cuff on his leg and taking his temperature under his arm was another battle for us. He's only ever had something stuck in his ear for 2 seconds max to accomplish that one. They should get one of those! Anyone who has a child should own one! Of course they needed to take an x-ray of his chest to make sure everything was "okay." They've never done that before at the pediatrician. As a matter of fact, when I've taken him in for croup 3 times in the past it's practically been an in out thing because you hear him cough once and your like "yeah, it's croup." Luckily the x-ray went fairly well, the process not the picture. Of course the picture was normal, but we did get to bring home the pictures on a CD. That was kinda cool. And then after all that they gave him a dose of the steroid and went ahead and did a nebulizer. The steroid is YUCK! and Zach's poor face shivered after taking it. He freaked out about the mask with air blowing in his face, but he finally began to calm down and the dose was basically gone by the time that had happened. So, at 5:30 Tyler's alarm went off in his pocket that it was time to wake up and get ready for work. We were headed out to our car to go home and our adventure was over. Upon arriving home I told Zach it was still dark outside so we needed to go back to bed. I climbed in bed with him. This is when it's nice that he has a queen size bed. And he eventually fell back asleep. He got a much better nights rest than before and we woke up with the sun shining in our faces. Well, I kept trying to block it from his so he would sleep as long as possible and luckily it was until 9:30. So, as I knew once he got the steroid he would pretty much be healed and I was right. He sounds a lot better already and we'll go fill his prescription soon. We also get to go pick up the toy I bribed him with to be a good patient. I later asked Tyler how he heard Zach coughing and knew to go in there and Tyler said, "he was yelling my name." So, the whole not being able to breathe woke Zach up and freaked him out. Luckily Tyler can hear even though I am dead to the world when I'm asleep.
Oh and on a good note I forgot to say that Zach's favorite color is now green. That's an upgrade from pink and brown! Although pink is my favorite color I did always find it odd that it was also my sons favorite color!