I am in an extremely fragile temperament this afternoon. My son has been sick, you see, and it has just blossomed into a wonderful case of croup.
Last week it seemed all the kids in playgroup were getting sick. No big deal. I was taking advice of my therapist and not letting it get under my skin. Of course Boo was going to catch something. And he did. He has been congested for a couple of days. I knew a few of the kids had coughs and one or two had come down with croup. I’ve been blindly hoping and praying that this season was going to be different for us.
Germs have quite a different plan for us, as is becoming quickly evident. Last night I was awakened to the sound of the neighbor’s dog barking. I wrote it off and quickly fell back to sleep. But then about 20 minutes later I heard it again. This time I was alarmed. I hate hearing dogs bark in the middle of the night. It makes me nervous and I always assume the worst. I lay in bed silently panicking to myself, imaging the worst case scenario. I snuggled as close as I could to my husband for whatever amount of protection his heavily slumbering body would provide. The part that I was having trouble wrapping my head around was why my dog wasn’t barking. And I guess what should have been my biggest giveaway was that my neighbor has three dogs and I only heard one bark.
I finally was so panicked that I woke him up. I said, “honey, the neighbor’s dog is barking.” And he said, “as long as it’s not ours, I don’t care.” Trying to quickly dismiss me and slip back into his blissful state of unawareness, the dog barked again.
“Did you hear that??”
Grumbling and groggy, “yes.” He got out of bed and went to our bedroom door. He stopped to listen.
I anxiously asked, “What? What is it? Do you hear something?”
He did. He heard our baby desperately trying to sleep whilst coughing and gagging on air.
It broke my heart. For the 20-30 minutes I had been panicking about a potential burglar and phantom dog bark, it was my son awakening from his peaceful dreams gasping for a breath.
Boo has had croup three times to date. The first time I never even considered croup. I didn’t even know what it was. One day he had a cold, and a week later he was hacking up a lung a la a 15+ year smoker. We went to the doctor where I was informed he had croup. Now I am no stranger to this illness. He had already been sleeping with his humidifier and the other times he had it, he slept soundly through the night and only had the scary barking cough in the morning when he woke up. This time was different.
We were both very nervous and scared, and immediately pulled him out of bed (at 4:40 am) to sit him in front of his humidifier. When that clearly wasn’t working, my husband took him outside for a couple of minutes. That didn’t work either. Now we were both becoming slightly panicked. It was also very early in the morning, mind you, so our thinking skills were not exactly up to par.
We decided the best thing to do would be to call our doctor’s office. We did. And we got a call back from a very unhappy, awakened too early, pediatrician. I explained the situation and asked if she would prescribe prednisone to a 24-hour pharmacy or if we should go to the ER. She said we should come in at normal office hours (duh) and by the time we would get to the ER he would be fine (duh), so we should pop him in a hot shower.
While this was going on, Boo and hubby were outside enjoying the quiet, cool, crisp night air. As soon as I was off the phone with the obviously cranky doctor (sorry, doc!), Boo’s cough seemed less intense. We scooped him back in bed and we all went back to sleep for about an hour.
I called the doctor’s office first thing this morning and luckily his doctor was there to see him. Croup? Check. Prednisone? Check.
All is well in the Boo household, right? Wrong. What did I do before leaving the doctor’s office? I asked what other illnesses we could look forward to this season. Bad move, lady. Bad, bad move.
Answer? Strep throat and vomiting.
Great news for someone who has a phobia of vomit.
…not.
I’m doing my best not to freak out, but I have been anyway. Oh, Cleveland. How I loathe your cold weather sicknesses. I will make sure to stay on top of my vitamin regimen, yogurt intake, and daily runs. I am determined to keep my immune system in tip-top shape this season. I will not be defeated. I will not let my mental tricks and games keep me preoccupied, and I will certainly not let myself fall prey to the many germs and illnesses that are already running rampant in the area. I hope you will do the same.
I hope it works.
I don’t want to panic anymore. I don’t want to constantly live in fear of my own body. I don’t want to avoid certain playdates or freak out every time I see someone’s post on Facebook about vomit or stomach flu. I don’t want to be this person anymore!
I am determined. This will not overtake my mental stability (or lack thereof) and ruin my life.
I hope it works.
Here’s to wishing you and yours, and me and mine, a healthy, uneventful winter season. Let the games begin.
