Scary Weekend

It was a scary weekend - but not of the Halloween variety.

Friday night, Bennett's cold turned into a terrible cough. He sounded like one of those sea lions at Pier 39 in San Francisco. A barking cough. I knew by the sound that it was croup. But according to everything I read, croup always sounds worse than it actually is. We called the advice nurse and she told us to run a hot shower and let him breathe in the steam and to let him sleep with a cool mist humidifier on, which we did. Bennett was miserable though. His cough was so painful, he kept saying "oweeeeee!oweeee!." The nurse told us to bring him into the office the next morning.

On Saturday morning, I called the office and the earliest appointment I could get was 10:40. We went off to get coffee and dim sum and decided to go early to the appointment,to see if he could get in any earlier since his breathing was already pretty labored. Good thing we did! The doctor looked at him and told us we should go to the ER - that this was one of the worst cases of croup she has seen. So off we went to El Camino Hospital.

At the ER they gave him two vaporizing treatments to help him breathe better. Only, he didn't get better as they had hoped. They took a chest x-ray as well, to check his lungs. That was weird seeing Bennett up on this gigantic machine. Poor thing was so tired by this point and he couldn't sleep. By late afternoon they told us he should be admitted overnight so they could give him more treatments and observe him.


That was the hardest night of all! He needed rest, but the vaporizing treatments are like taking 5 cups of coffee each time so his heart rate would skyrocket and he couldn't sleep. Plus they had a crib there and he is used to sleeping with us so that also made it hard. His breathing was still raspy and labored most of the night. It was scary.

By Sunday, he seemed to be doing better. He didnt need the vapo treatments, though his coughing was still bad and his breathing still rapid and a little raspy. They released him though by late afternoon

Today is Monday and I am home with him. His Lola Muriel is here too, helping out. He is still coughing and is tired, low appetite, but in general he sounds much, much better and should be able to do some trick or treating a little bit on Halloween!

3 comments:

Leslie said...

scary, melanie! glad to hear he's better.

Marie said...

Oh, poor thing!!! I hope he gets to go trick or treating. If not, there will be lots more halloweens to come!
Mel - we have to get together soon.
Claire and Camryn miss Bennett.

Unknown said...

Very scary! But relieved that he is feeling much better now. Sorry the little guy had to stay overnight in the hospital.