Midnight Scare

[selenite0]

A bit after midnight Maggie woke up with a barking cough, working hard to breathe. I could feel her chest going concave as she tried to suck air in. I'd seen this before with Brendan, who's had one attack of croup and many asthma attacks. It's still really flipping scary. The weather here is so hot that even at midnight we can't do the "take the kid out in the cool air" trick, it's still hot outside.

I stuck her in the van and headed off to the ER (celticdragonfly stayed home with Jamie, who was sleeping peacefully). Blasting the A/C in the car made a difference, she was coughing much less by the time we got there. She was still feeling very sick. The triage nurse got no cooperation at all from her.

The nurses gave her some ibuprofen and a pile of stickers to play with. She did better as time went by. The doctor examined her (stethescopes tickle) and declared it to be croup, but wanted her x-rayed to be sure it wasn't pneumonia. I questioned that, mostly because I didn't think the improvement in her odds of having a subtle disease didn't outweigh the increased odds of me getting her killed in a car accident by falling asleep on the road. But he insisted and it only took an hour of waiting to get the ten minutes with the tech. So we were home by 3am.

celticdragonfly gave her some steam time in the bath this morning to keep the system clear. So now she's just at the sick-and-tired lying under a blanket stage. Which I'm glad to see.

Comments

[unwilly.livejournal.com]

Glad you took her right in.

I am surprised they didn't give her a breathing treatment.

That happened to Lil Un once and it was very scary.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

I think the air conditioning gave her most of the benefit of the breathing treatment. Getting a steroid prescription to deal with worse attack would've been nice, though.

[unwilly.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

Call your GP on Monday and get a perscription

[xinef.livejournal.com]

Croup is viral and in the vast majority of cases, there aren't prescriptions that will help. The only thing that will, and only in serious cases, are the bronchodilators they use for asthma.

More later! Been there, done that.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Actually, from what I've read online, steroids (often nebulized) to treat the inflammation symptoms are fairly common. Viral, yes, so it's an indirect treatment.

[unwilly.livejournal.com]

Right, I was suggesting steriodal inhalers, for the asthma, and possibly an allergy med, perhaps Allegra or Claratin.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

No antihistimines or decongestants, the website I read said that - dries out the passages that you're trying to moisturize with the mist.

[unwilly.livejournal.com]

No decongestants, but anti-hists may help prevent allergy related asthma attacks.