In wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, E woke me up gasping for air. He had had croup earlier in the week, had seemed to be getting better, but came home with a fever on Tuesday afternoon and now here he was, freaked out and wheezing heavily, so I jumped up, threw on some clothes, and bundled him into the car to take a trip to the pediatric emergency clinic.
You may recall my last visit to this particular clinic, when J had Scarlet Fever. For those of you just tuning in, I was less than impressed. But we were in dire straits at this point, outside of regular office hours, so we had no choice. Normally, even severe croup can be somewhat calmed by taking the child out into the cool night air--but that isn't an option when the nighttime temperature is 88 degrees! E was frantic, panicked and sleepy and crying, and we forgot his shoes (rookie mistake--I swore never to do that again after another winter ER trip when we had just moved to Cleveland!), so I carried him in to the deserted ER and was seen almost immediately, which gave me all sorts of hope. They did not do a breathing treatment, which I thought was odd, but gave him a huge dose of oral steroids and sent us on our way. We arrived home less than an hour after we left, which was all sorts of miraculous (I have found the time of no traffic in Doha!) and right after we got him settled back in his bed, he started a coughing fit...and threw up the steroid. Sigh.
He was still laboring pretty hard to breathe, so we jumped into action and began texting our ER doc friends, all of whom are pediatricians because they work for the husband's hospital, and they walked us through his symptoms, told us to wait and see what happened, and then let us know we needed to go back to the ER if he worsened. So E stayed home from school with me, much to his eternal happiness (he really likes watching movies and I believe they facilitate quiet resting when the kids are sick, so bring on the screen time!). J was supposed to have a playdate at our house after school, but when his friend's mom texted me about the details, I told her my tale of woe and asked if J could go to her house instead, and then her family kept him for hours and gave him dinner and took him to both a bounce castle and the pool and I was forever grateful that he wasn't with us for the rest of our arduous day! (Thanks A & K! You are lifesavers!)
And everything was fine until the afternoon, when he got a lot worse quite suddenly. I contacted our friends, who said there was one of their own at the ER right now, but she was going to leave in 30 mins, so could I get there in time? We rushed out of the house again and made it with about one minute to spare, but then I couldn't get the nurses to let me see her even though she had been told I was coming. After talking to many nurses and getting more and more frustrated, I was seen by another doctor who first condescendingly told me "It will take a few days for the croup cough to go away" (umm, yes, I know, but can you hear how he has almost no airway right now?), then made an unhelpful joke about E being too big of a boy to get sick (??) and then said "Oh, he is congested. It must be bacterial" and tried to give me an antibiotics (no thank you, that is not the problem) and then he said, in front of E "Well, the only other thing we can do is repeat the oral steroid or give him a shot," at which point E completely lost it because shots are his Kryptonite. Thanks for that reassuring and sensitive bedside manner, buddy! On top of all this, on the way in there had been fire marshals at the building, loudly telling people that they were missing fire alarms and extinguishers; there were ceiling tiles down all over the place with wires hanging in the corridors, and I watched a line of ants march across the floor of our exam room while listening to the screams of at least 4 different children in the next rooms. Did I mention how much I hate this place?
At that point, I insisted someone find me the doctor who was waiting for us, and she finally arrived, like a breath of fresh North American air, all smiles and calm and bonding with E and she concurred that antibiotics were not necessary, that a second dose was needed and that the shhh! other method of delivery would probably be best to make sure he actually got the medicine he needed. Our friendly doctor ordered the meds, all without ever saying the word "shot" so E was none the wiser, and gave us her home number to call her whenever we liked. However, when the nurse came to deliver it, the nurse insisted that E had to be lying down to get the injection. And of course, he freaked out. In the end, it took three nurses to hold his legs still while I hugged his trunk to the bed and he screamed "PLEASE NO!!!" over and over in my ear. Then I heard the nurse say brightly "All done!" so I loosened my hold and got up...only to see her still pushing half the injection into his leg? E raised his head, still screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs, although by now he had stopped screaming words and was just making some kind of animal wail, and then he watched her push it as well, much to his horror and mine. What kind of "All done" is that, crazy lady?? But at least we were done, once the screams subsided.
On the way home, we were stuck in traffic for an hour so I stopped for ice cream as a guilt-induced reward for good behavior and then we stopped again for cheese puffs, because E asked for them plaintively and at that time I would have given him a pony if he'd asked. Thankfully, the second dose seemed to do the trick and he improved rapidly throughout the rest of the afternoon and was even able to go with us to pick up J at long last from his epic playdate. Whew. Now if only both boys can stay healthy long enough to get through our 15 hour plane ride to Dallas next week--fingers, toes, arms, and legs crossed!
You may recall my last visit to this particular clinic, when J had Scarlet Fever. For those of you just tuning in, I was less than impressed. But we were in dire straits at this point, outside of regular office hours, so we had no choice. Normally, even severe croup can be somewhat calmed by taking the child out into the cool night air--but that isn't an option when the nighttime temperature is 88 degrees! E was frantic, panicked and sleepy and crying, and we forgot his shoes (rookie mistake--I swore never to do that again after another winter ER trip when we had just moved to Cleveland!), so I carried him in to the deserted ER and was seen almost immediately, which gave me all sorts of hope. They did not do a breathing treatment, which I thought was odd, but gave him a huge dose of oral steroids and sent us on our way. We arrived home less than an hour after we left, which was all sorts of miraculous (I have found the time of no traffic in Doha!) and right after we got him settled back in his bed, he started a coughing fit...and threw up the steroid. Sigh.
He was still laboring pretty hard to breathe, so we jumped into action and began texting our ER doc friends, all of whom are pediatricians because they work for the husband's hospital, and they walked us through his symptoms, told us to wait and see what happened, and then let us know we needed to go back to the ER if he worsened. So E stayed home from school with me, much to his eternal happiness (he really likes watching movies and I believe they facilitate quiet resting when the kids are sick, so bring on the screen time!). J was supposed to have a playdate at our house after school, but when his friend's mom texted me about the details, I told her my tale of woe and asked if J could go to her house instead, and then her family kept him for hours and gave him dinner and took him to both a bounce castle and the pool and I was forever grateful that he wasn't with us for the rest of our arduous day! (Thanks A & K! You are lifesavers!)
And everything was fine until the afternoon, when he got a lot worse quite suddenly. I contacted our friends, who said there was one of their own at the ER right now, but she was going to leave in 30 mins, so could I get there in time? We rushed out of the house again and made it with about one minute to spare, but then I couldn't get the nurses to let me see her even though she had been told I was coming. After talking to many nurses and getting more and more frustrated, I was seen by another doctor who first condescendingly told me "It will take a few days for the croup cough to go away" (umm, yes, I know, but can you hear how he has almost no airway right now?), then made an unhelpful joke about E being too big of a boy to get sick (??) and then said "Oh, he is congested. It must be bacterial" and tried to give me an antibiotics (no thank you, that is not the problem) and then he said, in front of E "Well, the only other thing we can do is repeat the oral steroid or give him a shot," at which point E completely lost it because shots are his Kryptonite. Thanks for that reassuring and sensitive bedside manner, buddy! On top of all this, on the way in there had been fire marshals at the building, loudly telling people that they were missing fire alarms and extinguishers; there were ceiling tiles down all over the place with wires hanging in the corridors, and I watched a line of ants march across the floor of our exam room while listening to the screams of at least 4 different children in the next rooms. Did I mention how much I hate this place?
At that point, I insisted someone find me the doctor who was waiting for us, and she finally arrived, like a breath of fresh North American air, all smiles and calm and bonding with E and she concurred that antibiotics were not necessary, that a second dose was needed and that the shhh! other method of delivery would probably be best to make sure he actually got the medicine he needed. Our friendly doctor ordered the meds, all without ever saying the word "shot" so E was none the wiser, and gave us her home number to call her whenever we liked. However, when the nurse came to deliver it, the nurse insisted that E had to be lying down to get the injection. And of course, he freaked out. In the end, it took three nurses to hold his legs still while I hugged his trunk to the bed and he screamed "PLEASE NO!!!" over and over in my ear. Then I heard the nurse say brightly "All done!" so I loosened my hold and got up...only to see her still pushing half the injection into his leg? E raised his head, still screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs, although by now he had stopped screaming words and was just making some kind of animal wail, and then he watched her push it as well, much to his horror and mine. What kind of "All done" is that, crazy lady?? But at least we were done, once the screams subsided.
On the way home, we were stuck in traffic for an hour so I stopped for ice cream as a guilt-induced reward for good behavior and then we stopped again for cheese puffs, because E asked for them plaintively and at that time I would have given him a pony if he'd asked. Thankfully, the second dose seemed to do the trick and he improved rapidly throughout the rest of the afternoon and was even able to go with us to pick up J at long last from his epic playdate. Whew. Now if only both boys can stay healthy long enough to get through our 15 hour plane ride to Dallas next week--fingers, toes, arms, and legs crossed!
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| A much-improved E with not one but TWO kinds of cheese puffs, visual evidence of my deep-seated maternal guilt! |
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