Our poor little Ethan has been quite sick this week. Sunday he started to get a nasty cough, but was otherwise well. Sunday night he coughed a lot throughout the night and didn’t sleep too well. Monday morning he woke up with even more congestion. His breathing sounded like Darth Vader and he had a terrible chesty cough and kept tugging on his right ear. We took him to the local doctor at 11am. The doctor said he had an upper respiratory tract infection and was starting to get an ear infection. He said Ethan can have some anti-biotics if it doesn’t clear in a few days.
Monday afternoon at 2pm Sal was just about to get ready to go to work when Ethan woke up early from his nap crying and making another weird noise. We got him up and noticed he was distressed and looked like he was having trouble breathing from him cold. We tried to settle him, but he kept crying. Sal rang the doctor’s office who had an answering machine that said they were closed for lunch and would re-open at 2pm. It was 2pm, so she decided to take Ethan straight to the doctor. We did not know if this was normal for a cold, or if something was wrong. (meanwhile, Tracie stayed at home with a sleeping Ben and rang Sal’s work to tell them she would be late) The doctor’s receptionist told Sal the doctors were all busy and she would have to sit and wait with Ethan to see a doctor. Ethan was still crying and making a funny noise. Sal was crying too, as she was worried about Ethan. The receptionist still insisted they would have to wait at least half and hour to see a doctor. Sal rang Tracie to tell her what happened. Sal told Tracie she wasn’t happy with Ethan, and that they should take him to the hospital. Tracie woke Ben and we went to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital at about 2:30pm. Ethan was seen straight away. He was triaged category 2 (1 is the most severe and life threatening, 5 is least severe). The emergency staff were fantastic. They took Ethan out to the kids area and treated him straight away.
They explained to us that Ethan had croup. Basically, as I understand it, croup is a partial airway obstruction caused by mucus and inflammation. As we all know, when we (as adults) get a cold, our nose gets blocked by mucus. We notice it more in our noses as they are very small passages that block easily with a small amount of mucus. Croup occurs in young children as their airways are smaller (because they are small) and can become narrowed or blocked by mucus and inflammation from a simple cold. This narrowing of the airway causes a stridor (a high-pitched sound heard on inhalation) and a “barking" cough (often described as seal-like). Apparently, the stridor is worsened by agitation or crying which explained the funny noise we heard while he was crying. They asked us to try and calm him down so they could tell if the stridor was present while he was calm. We managed to calm him a little, and he still had the stridor. They gave him some nebulised (inhaled) adrenaline to help open his airway. Ethan HATED the nebuliser, but it helped, and for the first time in over an hour he was breathing easily. They connected him to heart monitoring and an oxygen monitor. They also gave him some oral steroids (dexamethasone) to help open his airways over the next few days. The adrenaline works instantly for and lasts for about 30mins, the steroids take longer to work, but last longer too.
The adrenaline lasted for about 30mins and then he started to become distressed again. About an hour after the first adrenaline dose, they gave him another dose. The second one was another horrible experience. Ethan HATED it. Like the first one, he screamed, kicked and tried to wriggle out of our arms. He was acting like we were trying to suffocate him with the mask. I can understand it would be horrible for someone to put a mask on your face when you’re already having difficulty breathing. Poor baby doesn’t understand we’re trying to help him. They also gave him some more oral steroids. He started to get a little better. We was EXHAUSTED, but wanted to explore the emergency department like Ben was doing. He had a little explore (being carried and with his heart and oxygen monitors attached) and was starting to get happier. It was about dinner time by this stage, and we had been told that Ethan would be admitted to hospital and be staying the night. We decided that Sal and Ben would go home, get some dinner and some supplies and come back. We got back around 6:30pm. About 7pm Ethan started to get worse again. His stridor came back and he began to get distressed again. They gave him another adrenaline nebuliser. This was the worst so far. He fought it all the way. He was so tired by then, but would not sleep. By 8pm he was starting to bounce off the walls. The doctors said all the adrenaline would make him hyperactive until about 3am. Tracie and Ethan stayed at the hospital. Sal and Ben went home to bed. The boys are usually in bed by about 6:30pm. Ben finally got to bed at about 8:30pm. He was exhausted and went to sleep without a word, for the first time without his brother in the room. Tracie and Ethan were finally transferred to a high observation bed on the kids ward at about 10:30pm. Ethan was hyperactive for a while, but Tracie managed to get him to sleep and he got about 5 hours of disturbed sleep. Tracie got about 1 hour sleep. Sal and Ben came to the hospital the next morning. The nurse said that Ethan came alive when Ben arrived. He was very pleased to see us both. We took Ethan home about 2pm.
We were very pleased to be home. We put the boys to bed and they had a little nap. Unfortunately Ethan woke up crying with stridor again. The doctors and nurses told us to expect this, and to bring him back if it was bad again. We tried to settle him. It took a while, but we managed to get him to calm down. It was not quite as bad as the day before, but close. We did not have to take him back to hospital, but we seriously considered it. We packed our bags and made a plan in case he woke again in the night. Thankfully our poor tired boy went straight to sleep and slept for almost 14 hours straight. We have never seen him that tired. He was almost falling asleep while we were getting him dressed for bed.
The next day he was a little better, today he was a little better again. He’s still sick, but defiantly improving.
Ben has been reasonably well throughout this whole ordeal. The doctors said he might get croup too, as it is a contagious viral infection - but so far so good. Unfortunately it looks like Tracie’s caught Ethan’s virus. She feels lousy, has a high temp and a terrible persistent cough that sounds like a seal barking.
We are all hoping Ben and Sal don’t catch it, and that Tracie and Ethan get better soon.
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