My Poor lil Boo Bear (Lincoln)

This is going to be a long post...sorry in advance.

So this week has been very exhausting for all of us here at the Knoll household.  Over the night on Monday Lincoln starting coughing a little bit.  I wasn't concerned because it wasn't keeping him awake or really seeming to bother him at all.  He woke up on Tuesday and coughed a little but after about a half hour was playing around and having a good time with all the other kids.  By nap time it was a different story.  The cough was getting worse.  When I heard him coughing at nap time I knew exactly what I was dealing with.  The awful CROUP!  He had this once before when he was about 4 months old.  For those of you who have never heard the Croup before it is a very distinct cough.  It is very loud and horse sounding.  It literally sounds like a seal barking.  By evening time the cough started to get worse so I called his doctor.  He told me that as long as he was breathing o.k. it shouldn't be a concern.

Tuesday night the cough got worse and I started to notice that he was having some trouble breathing.  The lil man went to bed at 8:00 p.m. woke back up at 10:00 p.m and was up the ENTIRE night.  He didn't sleep a wink.  I could tell he was so tired he just was struggling with his breathing so he couldn't sleep.  Ryan was working so it was just me to care for him.  Luckily Timothy slept like a little angel all night.  I thought about taking him into the ER that night but I never have good experiences when going to the ER so I decided to wait until morning when I could talk to his doctor (Dr. Moustafa).  I had him paged at 7:00 a.m and told him what was going on.  He told me that he was triple booked all day but to just call the office and tell them I spoke to him and I could walk in.

I had kids at my house so Ryan took him in.  Dr. Moustafa was really concerned about his breathing.  His little chest was retracting in really far and he was making a sound that they call strider.  He gave him a steroid shot and a breathing treatment and had Ryan stick around for about an hour to make sure he responded.  He responded great to the treatment so he sent him home.  A couple of hours after we got home he started struggling again.  His skin color was also very pale and sort of yellowish.  I called the doc and he said to take him to the hospital immediately.  Luckily my sister was over to pick up Nolan so she stayed with my daycare kids until their parents could come get them. 

When he got to his room they hooked up his IV and gave him another breathing treatment immediately.  He was still having a really rough time.  He just cried and cried because he was so miserable.  Not to mention he is getting teeth so that was also bothering him.  He received another breathing treatment about 8:00 p.m but was still showing no improvement.  Ryan went home with Timothy and I of course stayed with my baby.  When the doctor came up he decided he wanted me to put him in the croup tent for the night.  I immediately started crying when he told me this.  It's really not  that bad of a thing but I knew he would not like it and get scared.  The doctor assured me that the tent would really help him if I could get him to stay in there.  Well...........I could not get him to stay in there.  He wouldn't sleep so as soon as I would lay him in the tent he would panic.  So this was now night number two with NO sleep for both of us. 

The next morning (Thursday) he was showing some improvement.  When the doctor came up he said he thought with the treatments that by evening time we should be going home!!!!  In the afternoon he was doing great.  He was starting to drink again, SMILE (which we hadn't seen in over 24 hrs), and he was wanting to start moving around.  We thought for sure he would be going home.  His nurse said she thought he would benefit for another night but we thought he should go home.  Well then he started to make another turn for the worst.

When Dr. Moustafa came up he said he really wanted him to stay another night.  He was worried if he sent us home that we would be right back up the next morning.  He gave him an oral steroid medicine to try and help take down the swelling in his throat.  He also told me that I REALLY REALLY needed to get him in the tent.  So with the help of my dad we got him to sleep in his car seat and put him in the tent.  He slept for about 5 hrs that night in his tent.

This morning he was a totally different baby.  He was non stop smiles and was trying to talk to everyone that came in the room.  His breathing was pretty much back to normal and the strider was almost non exsistent.  Dr. Moustafa sent us home with a nebulizer to continue the breathing treatments as needed at home. 

Dr. Moustafa told us that normally with Croup hospitilization is not needed but Lincoln has a breathing condition that he had at birth and b/c of that it intentified his croup.  His breathing condition does not affect him anymore day to day only when he gets sick.  What he has is call laryngomalacia, which basiclly mean his larynx didn't fully devlelop and restricts his airway by flapping over the airway.  It really affected him until he was about 4 months old but hasn't had any issues with it.  He should completly out grow it by age 2.  When babies have croup it swells the throat and with his airway already being slightly restricted the croup was intensified. 

We are now at home and Lincoln is sleeping away.  He has only had about 7 hrs of sleep in the last three days so I am hoping that tonight he will catch up on his much needed sleep.

One more thing before I go....I do have to give a shout out to the 4th floor nurses at LaPorte Hospital on the peditatric side, the respitory theripists that helped my little boy, and of course the greatest doc ever Dr. Moustafa.  They all took great care of him!!!!  Also a big thank you to all of our family and friends for the support, prayers, and help while we were at the hospital!!!

Here are some pics from our hosptial stay....

Still smiling but so sick

Finally sleeping

Timothy kept telling him he was locked in a cage

The wagon ride down to the car!!!!!

The above pics are from the second and third day.  I didn't have my camera the first day but the poor little guy looked so terrible I would have felt bad photographing him.