This past Tuesday I took Matthew to the doctor because Brian and I suspected he may have an ear infection; he was exhibiting many of the signs. Thankfully, his ears were fine but the nurse practitioner told me to bring him back in 2-3 days if he was still experiencing the same symptoms, just to make sure that he was okay. He continued to communicate to us that he was in pain over the course of the next 2 days (by screaming and fussing non-stop, of course), so on Thursday night I resolved to call the doctor’s office first thing Friday morning to schedule a same-day appointment.
I got Matthew to sleep and then just as I was putting on my pajamas, I heard something I didn’t like.
Wheezing.
I walked into the baby’s room and observed him as he slept in his crib, calmly but noisily laboring for breath. I didn’t like what I saw, but I knew it was nothing to be too worried about. I headed back to my room. A few minutes later, though, it got worse. He coughed — a deep, barking cough — and I darted back to his room like a kid who’s just been told that Santa is back to give her more gifts.
Matthew’s cough had woken him up and now he sounded terrible. It was an instantaneous transformation. One second he was okay and the next…he appeared to be in respiratory distress. After making a quick phone call to Brian’s dad (a physician and father of four) and then observing Matthew for a few more minutes, we packed up the diaper bag and headed to the ER. It was 11pm.
We know the stereotype about first-time parents: that they worry about the tiniest little things and call the doctor when the baby has the hiccups or a runny nose. Over the past 5 months, Brian and I have tried not to get too skiddish when something seems to be ailing our little one. But when your baby is crying and coughing and flailing and struggling to breathe, I don’t care who you are or how many babies you’ve raised, you get your butt in the car and go to the hospital. No questions asked.
Thankfully, we live 2 blocks from the hospital where Matthew was born so it took us all of 45 seconds to drive there. Let me tell you, those 45 seconds felt like much longer as he struggled to cry and cough and I leaned my face into his car seat, stroking his head and telling him it was going to be okay.
We pulled up to Emergency Room, gave our car key to the guy working to night shift at the free hospital valet (THANK YOU!) and carried our little guy inside. After checking in and getting his temperature and weight recorded, we waited in the lobby where he inquisitively checked out the contents of the vending machine, overlapped by his own reflection.
After 10 minutes or so, we were called in.
Matthew had settled down by this point and was interested in observing his environment and smiling at people as we walked into an ER room that was roughly the size of a shoebox. There was iodine splattered on the floor and wall and I thought to myself, Don’t they put that stuff on people right before they cut them open? I wonder what went down in this room before we got here. After a few minutes in the tiny room, a girl who couldn’t have been older than me (a medical assistant, maybe?) came in and took down our statement, so to speak. We told her what happened and why we were here and then a few minutes later she returned with the doctor. When this highly trained professional entered our room, he found a happy baby who was “alert”, “curious” (his words), and making eyes at the assistant girl as he smiled and cooed and did his best to convince everyone that he was fine and his parents had overreacted.
Seriously, child?!
A pediatric Respiratory Therapist was called in and we again repeated our story. Then the doctor looked at us and, as tactfully as he could muster, asked, “Now what led you to think he needed to come to the Emergency Room?”
Thanks, Matthew.
He asked us what time Matthew had become sick and then asked, “And at what time did he get better?”
Seriously, child! Could you at least ACT sick so that we don’t look like total idiots?
We fumbled for words, mumbling something about how he really, truly was sick and had sounded terrible. After a few minutes, Matthew finally obliged by letting out a cough that then spun out of control and demonstrated the barking sound that had prompted our visit in the first place. The doctor and RT looked at each other and then confirmed that, yes, it sounded like croup. We weren’t making it up, and we weren’t crazy.
Thank goodness!
We waited as the RT went to prepare the cold air treatment that Matthew would receive in the next hour, and the doctor explained to us the course the croup usually runs. He said that it’s usually bad the first night, worse the second night and then, just when you think it can’t get any worse, it becomes even worse the third night. We were currently on night number one. He told us about the benefits of giving Matthew a steroid injection to provide him some relief over the course of the next 1-2 days as the croup ran its course (similar to how inhalers work with asthma). We consented to the injection.
Over the course of the next hour, we pointed a tube of cold air toward Matthew’s mouth and nose so that he could breathe it in, and we held and comforted him as he received his injection.
By 2am, the treatment was finished. They turned off the cold air and then, of course, he immediately resumed his barking cough. The doctor and RT came back in to observe him for a few minutes and concluded that it hadn’t gotten any worse than when he first started the treatment and they felt comfortable sending him home. The doctor looked at us and empathetically explained how scary it can be for parents to see their child struggling to breathe, but that he would be okay. He told us that he would be working in the ER until 6am, so if we got home and Matthew seemed to get worse, we could always give him a call or come back in. Then he gave us his business card.
That was weird.
We thanked the doctor for his time, packed up our stuff, and vacated the tiny room. As we stood in the lobby, waiting for our car to be returned to us by the valet, Matthew sat in his car seat and smiled like a goober.
Brian dropped me and Matthew off at home so that I could feed him and he could go purchase a humidifier at the 24-hour CVS down the road. We reconvened about 20 minutes later, set Matthew up next to our bed in his bouncer with the humidier blasting toward him, and fell asleep around 3am. Matthew awoke to eat around 5am, didn’t want to go to sleep, and ended up snuggling in bed with us until we surrendered to the fact that it was time to get up a few hours later.
Two cups of coffee later, I am still craving sleep and daydreaming of a time when I could pull an all-nighter and then sleep as long as I wanted the day after.
Matthew still sounds like an 80-year-old lifelong smoker and we potentially have a long 2 nights ahead of us, but he’s a trooper and when he’s not in pain, he’s always smiling. In fact, he’s been sitting on my lap/in the Baby Bjorne while I’ve been writing some of this post, and he’s been very entertained.
Trials like the one that occurred last night serve to make us parents stronger and more durable, and I know there will be many more to come in the future. Thankful for a husband who helps, a hospital that’s close by, a baby who’s resilient, and a God who comforts and heals.
