One Looooooong Night

First let me say that Mother's day was wonderful! The kids woke up happy, healthy and rested. We had a yummy lunch at Macaroni Grill and then I got to take a nap -- I laid down and didn't wake up for almost 4 hours!!! Little did I know that the nap would be much needed later that night. Harrison woke up from his nap with a little cough and a little fever, so Matt stayed home with him and I went to church. By the time we got home from church the "little fever" was 103.3. We gave him some motrin and put him down for the night. He was having a hard time breathing and was just really restless -- I couldn't sleep with him like that so I sat up in the rocker in his room. Around midnight he started having a LOT of trouble breathing, so I started taking him out in the night air to see if that would help. By 12:30 he was making a "honking" sound with every breath so I put in a call to the doctor -- he said one sentence: Get him to Childrens ER ASAP.

Soooooo, around 12:45 I called my AMAZING, WONDERUL, HOW -WOULD-WE-MAKE-IT WITHOUT-THEM parents who without hesitation said they'd meet me at the ER. Since Matt HAD to be at work, I packed up Madeleine and Harrison and raced down to Little Rock. We walked into the ER and they quickly evaluated Harrison and rushed us into a room where we were immediately joined by 2 doctors a nurse and a respitory specialist. By this point Harrison's chest was retracting severly with each breath and he was having an extremely difficult time breathing & he wasn't even crying -- he was just laying there -- and his little chest was retracting. I don't think I've ever been so scared in my entire life. They started him on some oxygen and then followed it with some meds. He had chest and neck x-rays and 2 steriod shots. His breathing got better and he slept a little bit. They kepts us until around 7am to be sure he wasn't going to have a relapse -- the doctor later told us that Harrison was one of their "scary croup cases." I don't think I would have survived the night without my Dad who stayed with me the entire time -- which is great since Harrison absolutely adores him and was happy just in grandad's arms.

Finally, we headed home and tried to get some rest. My sweet mom took the day off and helped me with the kids and let me get some much needed rest. :)

Last night was a little better -- we also got some sleep -- but it's going to be a long week of recovery for my little guy. He still sounds very, very croupy and he's pretty cranky but we're surviving.

On a side note, the staff and doctors at Childrens were awesome. They kept us informed of everything going on and took such good care of Harrison. I am so thankful that we lived close to them.