Not What We Had Planned

Tuesday morning, Jeremiah woke up with that barking seal type cough. He didn't have any other symptoms, so we didn't really think much of it. He went to school (water day nonetheless) and I picked him up at 1:30. He fell asleep on the way home. At about 3:30, he woke up with a very high pitched cry and was really laboring to breathe. I quieted him down and put him back to bed. I called the Dr.'s office. The Nurse said that if he was wheezing, he needed to come in. So Samuel & I took him to the Dr's office. David, for some reason, decided to join us there. It seemed odd at the time that he would do that because I figured the Dr. would say, "Cool mist humidifier, some Dimetapp and lots of liquids." At most, they might give him albuterol first.

Instead they said, "He has croup. And we're going to give him a breathing treatment and a steroid, but he can't go home. He needs to go to the hospital overnight." I was shocked. Apparently, croup gets worse at night and since he was that bad in the middle of the afternoon (his heart rate was 162 and his temp 104.4), they didn't want to send him home and then just have us end up at the ER in the middle of the night.


So we went next door to the hospital and went through admitting to a room on the second floor. It was so surreal. Jeremiah did so good!!! He sat in his bed and watched TV, colored, was very sweet. They brought the x-ray machine in to get a chest x-ray and he just sat there coloring while they took pictures of his insides. And Samuel was an adorable big brother. When they came to take Jeremiah's blood, Samuel just sat there watching and loving on Jeremiah. Once they got the croup tent set up, Samuel & Jeremiah sat under it and watched cartoons.

I stayed with him that night and David brought Samuel home. There wasn't much sleep had by me, although Jeremiah slept a good 10 hours. One serendipity: all the nurses on the floor that night were Filipinos. Pretty cool!

The next morning Jeremiah was completely back to normal. For those of you who know Jeremiah, imagine him with a wire stuck to his toe which meant he had to stay in the bed for four hours Wed. morning (He was there about 18 hours, but the last four were definitely the hardest). When the Dr. examined him, he said, "He looks great. We'll send you home with medicine and he should be as good as new." I said, "This may be a silly question, but tomorrow is his last day of school...." He said, "Oh go ahead and send him. He's not contagious anymore now that his fever is gone. In fact, he can be around kids today if you want." Wow, that's not what I was expecting. Thank you Lord!

Anyway, here's the only picture we got of Jeremiah in his hospital gown, sitting with David in the bed. You can see the croup tent behind the bed. When it was down, it came to about Jeremiah's feet and misted water and oxygen. Very humid!! :)

Love you all. Thanks for praying for our sweet boy! We're glad he's home and well.