Scared Momma half to death . . .

Harrison came into our bed at 4:30 with a croopy cough. He has been struggling with a cough for a couple days, but it hasn't gotten too bad. He kept coughing and struggling and wheezing. He's asthmatic, so I took him downstairs to do a breathing treatment. It was not getting better! He was hacking and gasping for air. He was getting a blue tinge to his lips. I panicked, I almost called 911. I knew the breathing treatment would help so I tried to wait it out but he was freaking out and couldn't even get enough air to talk. I began to really panic and began to throw on clothes. Finally, I swooped him up and ran to the ER at 5:00.

I don't think I have ever driven so fast in my life.

Thankfully we live very close to the hospital. I was there in less than 2 minutes. The security guy there told me to rush him in and he parked my car. By this time I was freaking out.

They put us in the level 1 trauma area. The ER doc was fabulous. He checked his lungs and told me it was not asthma related at all. His lungs were plenty clear, but his throat was closing due to the inflammation with croop. They gave him a steroid shot and a different kind of breathing treatment, with adrenaline and steroids, to target his throat not his lungs. They warned me that he wouldn't like it, that it was different than his normal nebulizer, and they were right. He hated it! His breathing settled down in about 45 minutes. He of course still has the croopy cough, but he can breathe!

They made us stay a couple hours to make sure that the would not rebound and have another "attack". Thank goodness I had to forethought to grab his Nintendo DS when I left in a hurry. I knew it would come in handy for either him or me. He played while I dosed off in the extremely uncomfortable chair with my head on his bed rail.

The ER staff loved him. They kept coming over to see the little one who sounded like a seal! His barking was quite loud! Why is it that whenever something like this happens you realize your child's nails are dirty and need clipped, and they have on their worst pair of socks and dirty undies!?

When we got there he could barely breath. By the time we left he wanted Cinnamelts from the golden arches and was grooving the air guitar to Cold Play. I am thankful for the small things.