Sickness Part 2:(

Unfortunately, things have been kind of crazy over here in the Thomas household; hence the lack of posting! Poor Zakkai has come down with the H1N1 (confirmed by 2 drs) as of Sunday. I worried more about him because he already had a cough from a cold last week. Sure enough, his cough doubled in terribleness (I just made that word up!).

Ben called me in a panic yesterday at naptime (I was taking Samuel to school and grocery shopping), saying that Zakkai was having trouble breathing. He had put Z down for a nap and he started coughing so badly that he struggled to breath well and threw up! So he got me all panicky and scrambling to get him a dr's appt. His dr.'s office couldn't fit him in, as usual, so I ended up taking him to a Take Care clinic since he wasn't doing too badly. He was put on Tamiflu and an inhaler, which I gave to him before putting him to bed.

Within minutes of him falling asleep, propped up by many pillows, he started coughing this terrible sharp, barking sound. You could tell that he wasn't getting as much air as he should be. Between that and Samuel's coughing fits (he has a lingering nasty cough), I was in their room 4 times within 45 minutes. Ben came home from a workshop when I was in their room 3rd or 4th time and could hear immediately that he wasn't doing well. We were really worried.

About 10 minutes later, Z made some weird noises and I rushed in to find him REALLY struggling to breathe. He was trying to cough and was making this terrible noise when he inhaled, making it obvious that he wasn't getting air. I panicked and yelled for Ben to grab his inhaler, hoping that could open up his airways. It didn't work and he was turning white around his lips. I was SO scared and so was Ben so he helped me bundle him up and i took him to the ER.

I just have to say that the children's ER here is WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY better than the adult ER!! The people were so much friendlier and it "looked" cleaner. I waited about an hour to get called back to triage to get his vitals and info taken. He had calmed down a lot, which I found out later, was due to the cold air outside! For some reason that really helps when kids are having trouble breathing.

We got called back to a room about 10 min later and shortly after saw a VERY nice dr, followed by another one a little while later. The consensus diagnosis: Croup caused by the h1n1 virus. Z is prone to croup; this is his 3rd bout with it, so that's why he likely went into it. They brought him juice, fell in love with him because he's adorable:) and watched him for awhile before giving him a steroid to reduce inflamation in his lungs.

We finally made it home close to midnight for a not very restful night's sleep. He was up a lot, with one almost-scary episode. I did a lot of praying because I was so scared he was getting bad again. He calmed down pretty quickly and was just up off and on, crying for me. He slept off and on until close to 9 this morning!

He isn't quite himself today and isn't eating but he's breathing okay, which is what we want! Just praying and hoping for a calm night tonight.....

So please forgive me for ignoring you! I am sitting here with my little one, watching the beautiful white snow fall from the peaceful sky, listening to Christmas music and hoping for a peaceful day...