Midnight Saturday morning, Annika woke up with a crazy-sounding cough...we later heard the doctor ask us if it sounded like a seal. Oh, it did. Chris immediately jumped out of bed (he's quick like that) and went into her room where she was just starting to realize that it was hard to breathe. She was sobbing, we were sobbing (on the inside). Chris walked her around the house for a bit to calm her, with little effect. Within minutes I was looking for the phone as her cries got louder and the cough more distinctive. I started to think she might be having an asthma attack. Kaiser has a great nurse advice line which for some reason was...closed! Closed?I asked Chris if we should call 911, but he said he thought we should go right to the emergency room. My only hesitation there was that if you arrive alone without an ambulance, then you might have to wait longer. But Chris thought the ambulance would be too slow (you can tell we've never called an ambulance) so we started to get ready to head to the hospital.
We raced to the hospital (not too fast, don't worry) and realized that they just opened a new hospital and we didn't know where the entrance was. That was sort of funny. Not really. At this point, I was sitting in the back seat with Annika to keep an eye on her and to make sure she was still breathing. We still weren't sure what was going on, so I still hadn't ruled out choking, and wanted to make sure she could talk. She nodded a bit and said "no" a few times when I asked things, so I was relatively satisfied that choking wasn't the issue.
We arrived at the hospital as she started to cry and cough again, barely being able to take a breath in. It was terrifying. Her wails were so loud that the sick people in the waiting room became silent, listening to the little baby with a bad sickness. I wanted to cry. We were behind a woman who had pain in her legs (pain in her legs?!) and as Annika continued to cry and cough, the nurse pushed the leg lady aside and immediately tested Annika's blood pressure. The nurse asked me quickly "Does she have a history of croup?" I said no, knowing only a little what that was (a bad cough?). They ushered her to a screening room right away while leg lady stood aside. I guess we didn't need the ambulance after all.
Annika couldn't stop crying for much of the beginning of the ordeal. They took about 5 minutes to check her out and then told me they were going to register her. I had visions of her little self in a hospital bed and I almost lost it, but just tried to stay calm. Chris tried to comfort her while I handled the paper work.
In her room she was scared and wanted to leave. At this point, I still didn't really know or understand what they thought she had...I assumed croup, but still didn't have a handle on what exactly it was. (Left my Mayo Medical Bible at home...woops).
When the doctor came in and calmly explained their diagnosis, we came to understand what she had - croup, an imflammation of the airways often caused by a cold or flu virus that gets a little out of control - and we relaxed a bit. She wasn't crying as often and didn't appear that she would have to stay overnight at the hospital.
The treatment was a cool mist mask to soften and enlarge her airways to relieve the cough and help her breathe. Well, feel free to tell me how to convince an already scared toddler that a mask with crazy mist coming out of it is a good thing...well, we failed to convince her. She fought and cried and couldn't understand. So we just decided to calm her and take our time. Thank goodness her curiosity won out as when she calmed, she wanted to get closer to it and we eventually saw the difference in her breathing.
The last hurdle was to take some steroids to fully enlarge her breathing passage to get her some rest that night and to ease the cough. The medicine tasted awful - and though I didn't actually taste it, I could smell it, and the mere smell made me queasy. My poor little girl. She forced it down though and in less than 10 minutes, she was dancing to music on my iPhone. We are so lucky to have that little girl.
She is well on her way to recovery, though she now has a nasty regular-sounding cough - especially when she sleeps. But she's in a good mood and is very patient with the limitations that her sickness presents (i.e. no park, sandbox or pool).
She has been so brave and I can't even tell you how scary and terrifying even the slightest of sicknesses can be to a parent. Well, all of you parents understand, but I just thank God every day that she is as healthy as she is.
