Crouper Bowl Weekend

This was supposed to be our Great Couple weekend.  We had two, count ‘em, two social engagements on the calendar.  Friday night was the Symphony.  Saturday night was our friends’ annual Mardi Gras party.  And these folks are professionals, as they lived in New Orleans and regularly make Jambalaya, Etouffe and King’s Cake on their own.  We had even arranged for free babysitting for both nights: my parents who, at this stage, as still thrilled enough to be around the monkey to drop what they’re doing and watch him sleep.  Apparently, we’d forgotten to run our plans by the little guy.

Friday afternoon, I got a call from the daycare that Conor was running a 100.6 fever.  I had more meetings for the rest of the afternoon, so I paged Dave at work and he took off pronto to get the sick one.  The report from Dave and the daycare was that he was acting a little off, but generally seemed OK.  By the time I got home, he wanted to be held, and as soon as he saw me, he wanted a boob.  He was just a bit fussy, but didn’t seem completely taken over by whatever he might have. 

However, I’m sure you can imagine, as Dave did, that a first time mother with her child’s first real fever is not likely to leave him with the sitters, even if the sitters are her parents.  You would imagine correctly.  Besides, we decided it would be nice to hang out with my Mom and Dad and have a nice dinner and some wine. 

By the time we put Conor to bed, he sounded a little hoarse and a bit congested but no big whoop.  He woke up at 9:30, and we gave him some more Tylenol and a little more boob.  He woke up again at 11:30 and we brought him to bed.  I put him down between us, and he was burning up.  An accurate, ummmmm, rectal temp was 101.6 which freaked me out because he was in the middle of a Tylenol dosage.  And then he started coughing.  Well, it was sort of like coughing, but it did not sound right.  Dave, being the uncle of 11 children, said “it sounds like croup.”  Personally, I thought “Croup” was something like “The Vapors”, a vague description of some bodily function that went out of style in the mid-1800’s.

The baby books confirmed that Croup is alive and well, and a not uncommon problem with babies.  You know you have croup if the baby’s cough sounds like a bark.  To be honest, I wouldn’t confuse Conor’s cough with Patches, but it clearly did not sound like a normal cough.  There was no depth to it; it was a one tone cough and it just didn’t sound like any sort of normal cough.

According to Sears, Conor’s croup was of the “nonserious” kind.  He was still alert and active and was able to sleep.  However, with croup, you need to be alert for the More Serious kind of croup, when they baby has a hard time breathing, his breaths are raspy and he gets stridor (and not the good Strider from Lord of the Rings), raspy inhaling of breath.  At its worst, the child gets a worried expression on his face, the child can’t speak or cry, and the child is struggling for breath.  At this point, parents should immediately take their child to the emergency room.  

I would just like to say right here on blogland that reading that sort of statement at 11:30 pm right before bed is not likely to be considered sleep inducing.  With Conor lying between us and my worried brain, I was constantly leaning over and sticking my ear over Conor’s face.  Is that Dave snoring or is Conor struggling for breath?  Will I be able to hear Conor struggling for breath over Dave’s snoring?  STOP SNORING AND WAKE UP AND LISTEN TO OUR SON’S BREATH! 

After a very restless night, in which Conor spent much of it snuggling against his father (which was awfully cute), we called the doctor’s office to see if we needed an appointment.  Basically, there is no treatment for croup unless he gets three attacks of stridor within 24 hours, and then they give him steroids.  Instead, the on duty emergency nurse wanted us to give him a sauna treatment:  20 minutes in the bathroom with a hot shower steamfest.  He didn’t take a shower, but we hung out in there playing and reading while the warm, moist air broke up his phlegm.  Also, she prescribed lots of boob. 

His fever was up and down most of Saturday.  Every time he “barked,” we took him into the sauna.  We did that twice during the day and twice Saturday night/Sunday morning. 

And no, we did not go to the party Saturday night.  When I took his afternoon temp and it was 100.7, I just couldn’t imagine not being immediately accessible if it shot up again.  Maybe if I had more children and was a veteran of more illnesses than I could have been able to leave him.  But I don’t and I’m not.

So we missed our big weekend out.  The benefit is that we figured out we’d really like my parents to come up for more weekends to hang out and also, ahem, to put my dad to work on the garage remodel with Dave. I’m posting an update this week.  It’s amazing how great it looks now!

7:41:51 AM