The Schnabel's: August 2010

Monday the 16th was like any normal Monday, nothing to report. Tuesday the 17th started with a funky cough. Over the monitor I detected a cough that distinctly sounded like a bark. Kane seemed happy and normal and without temperature. My mom was keeping him for the day, I alerted her of the cough and told her to be on the watch for any other symptoms. By the time I got off work his cough had gotten worse and his resting breathing sounded like Darth Vader. There were no sick baby appointments available on Tuesday so we make one for Wednesday at 9:30. As the night went on, the sleep was few and far between. At 12:30 he had a 100.1 fever, at 3:30 he had a 101.5 fever and again at 5:30 a fever of 101. His cough persisted and you could tell he was weaker than normal. He wasn't wetting his diapers like normal and rejected his bottles.

Finally the appointment at 9:30 came. When the nurse saw him breathing she didn't even want me to place him on his back to weight him because it would make his breathing even worse.

She got Dr. Wiley right away and she ordered a nebulizer treatment. It was the absolute worst "Mommy moment" thus far, holding that mask over his little nose and mouth while the medicine mist blew at him and his little watery eyes glared at me :( The nurse warned me, "Mom, this isn't going to be easy for you, and he's certainly not going to like it, but the harder he cries the deeper it goes into his lungs and the better off he'll be". After that gut wrenching treatment they gave him a steroid shot and listened to his lungs again. Dr. Wiley was very honest with me that she thought it was severe croup and that we needed to be seen at CHKD and she didn't feel comfortable with me driving him alone for fear that something could develop and get worse on the ride over there. She called the CHKD amblulance to transport us over to Norfolk. Chip met us at the Dr.'s office and the medic's came to get our little pumpkin. It was surreal seeing them situate him on the stretcher, but they strapped him in like he was in a rear-facing car seat. In the ambulance we went, Chip followed behind in the car, off to CHKD.

In the ambulance they did another nebulizer treatment, thank goodness I was sitting upfront and didn't have to watch my poor baby go through that again. Once we got to CHKD we stayed in the emergency room for a few hours in our little private room watching Peter Pan and The Jungle book. After yet ANOTHER nebulizer treatment we were told they wanted to keep

him over night for observation. Off to the 7th floor we went to our home for the next 24 hours. My mom brought Chip and I dinner and we were visited by my dad, brother and close family friend Susie who just so happened to be volunteering at the CHKD gift shop that day.

Kane continued to respond well to the steroids and nebulizer treatments. He played in his crib, but you could still tell his was sick since he would just fall flat out and go to sleep while he was still playing. A few times I would get into his crib with him to get him to fall asleep. The only upside of him being sick was that I could truly comfort him and he wanted to cuddle and snuggle all the time. Thankfully we were only in CHKD for 24 hours, and they took great care of us.

Kane is now 100% better, and Chip and I have been recovering from our own sicknesses this past week. We our now disinfecting the house as we speak!! Tomorrow we're going for Kane's 9 month pictures a bit late since he's now 10 months. Can you believe he's 10 WHOLE MONTHS?! Enjoy some pic's of my big HEALTHY boy!