"Croup"ed Out

Yes it is true. Our little man has Croup for the past 4 days, and I would not wish that on any body's child! Samuel could barely breath and would panic many times throughout the day to send him sobbing for some sort of reassurance that he would be okay. I give all the credit to his Montessori school. Our pediatrician said that Croup is usually passed through other children and due to the lack of him being around other children until now, that is my hypothesis. Our bed has been the recliner in order to keep Sam in a reclined position to make breathing for him easier, giving him his medication around the clock, and closely listening for any change in his struggle for breaths. This all started out as an innocent cold just after his counterpart Norman had the sniffles; and concluded that it was mere coincidence that Sam was sick days after Normy was, considering he hadn't been around him for a week after I read the report on Becca's blog. Not much later I knew that he was much sicker than anticipated.

His poor little voice is barely noticeable with weak interrupted "crying" sounds, fever,
and labored breaths are all apart of this dreadful experience. Until now I have been blessed to not know the toll Sam being sick would take on me. Hours at a time in the wee hours of the night, I would watch him sleep and closely listen for any signs of respiratory distress, so I could react in a timely manner to get him to the emergency room. With the medications we have to give Sam it was also recommended to us that we let him breath in the cold air outside,
which is supposed to sooth his vocal cords; and then do a steam shower at night to help break up the gunk in his chest. With everything going on I am emotionally drained, although I have tried extremely hard to keep composure, and physically drained from my sleepless night and short sobbing moments of feeling absolutely helpless to my son. The important thing is my baby is taken care of. I took Tuesday and Wednesday off of work and Daddy assumed duty Thursday, and I will again assume duty for Friday. With any luck Samuel will be doing much better by the weekend and we can get some much needed R&R in! Although Sam is down for the count, he certainly isn't out! Here you might be able to see some of his discomfort and because he is such a good boy he even stopped to smile for me later that day.



I also will now put more emphasis on cleanliness with our son. Toys will be sprayed with Lysol on a nightly basis and there is no playing with noticeable soiled objects (which I tried very hard to avoid in the first place) but I will be even better than before. Shoes will be removed EVERY TIME we come in the house so that the chemicals from the road, and just the nasty stuff in general we walk on, will not be tracked onto the carpet our son loves rolling around on. Hopefully his immune system will be hard charging for the next time an invasive virus chooses to use our son as its host.