Yesterday marked a first for Jace's record book... his first trip to the Emergency Room. Not exactly a fun first! When we were at preschool/work on Thursday he started acting really sensitive and clingy so I knew something was going on... by the end of the day he was crying and had a fever so we headed home early. He spent the rest of Thursday resting and taking some Tylenol to bring his fever down.
The next day he woke up without a fever and acting completely normal so I brushed it off as some random teething pain but still spent the morning taking it easy just in case he was still feeling under the weather. By late afternoon I decided he was fine and took him out on a stroller walk at the nearby outlet center. We spent an hour walking around and popping in and out of stores. All of a sudden he started acting whiney again so we headed home. He didn't want to touch dinner and was falling asleep at the table so I put him to bed. About two hours later he was up crying and coughing a dry cough. He got up and had some milk and hung out with Tate and I for a bit. He was just acting "off", no real signs of sickness but he just seemed really uncomfortable and I questioned whether or not we should bring him in to the ER. I told myself I was being paranoid, so I calmed down and spent the next hour watching him while he doozed on the couch. He started getting some personality back and seemed fine so we put him back to bed.
Early the next morning I woke up to a barking cough coming from Jace's room and immediately knew it was croup. When he was about 6 months old he has a croupy virus that he had to be put on steroids and a nebulizer for. I started getting up and throwing clothes on while Jace laid in our bed with Tate, drinking some fluids. I called our pediatricians clinic to see where to go for urgent care, since it was Saturday and their office was closed. The nurses line called me back and asked to talk to Jace, I put the phone to his mouth for him to talk and breath into and when I got back on the phone she told me not to wait and to take him to the ER right away.
Tate was able to brush it off as no big deal, having spent plenty of time in an ER over the last 31 years... but this was my first ER visit so I was really nervous to go alone. (I don't count the time I was in there with kidney stones, and on so many pain meds I couldn't tell you one thing about it, it was all a blur...) Tate got up and the three of us headed to the hospital. Jace's vital signs all looked good when we got checked in, but he was immediately spooked by the hospital and wouldn't cooperate with any of the medications or testing. It ended up being a really good thing that Tate was with, because it required both of us to hold him still for most of it.
The hospital staff was really good to Jace, making sure he was as comfortable as possible throughout getting medicine shoved down his throat, a steroid shot, and x-rays. They gave him some ice cream after his shot and a sticker after his x-rays... which really helped calm him down. We stayed around the hospital for a while after the medications and within an hour Jace was breathing much easier. The doctor said it was viral croup and that the steroids and lots of fluid along with restricted physical activity for a few days should make it disappear. Thankfully he seems to have been right, Jace improved greatly yesterday and today it's becoming very difficult to keep him away from "physical activity". He's been begging to go outside and play, so I keep bribing him with movies to get him to sit still... which apparently aren't as exciting when they're being offered up freely, instead of on a limited basis!
While we were at the hospital, there was a fire in the ER and we were all locked into our rooms for safety. A little scary! But, according to the doctor who was in the room with us at the time, that's nothing compared to gun shots that have gone off in the ER while he's been at work. Umm... yea, that didn't really settle my nerves about the hospital! We had to miss out on some fall fun this weekend which was disappointing, but I'm thankful that this all happened this weekend instead of next week when Jace has his birthday party and then we'll be heading to Minnesota. Here's hoping he's fully recovered long before that!
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