Emma has croup. Again. Some of you may not be familiar with this particular Childhood Illness. So allow me to describe it to you in the form of a short story.
Your young child has a cold. A simple head cold. There is congestion, some crankiness, and a great deal of green crap oozing out of her nose. So you settle in for a couple of days at home. After a couple of days she has a bad night. She wakes up crying a lot because she's having trouble breathing through the thick layer of crusted snot that has sealed her nose shut. You give her Tylenol. Switch the humidifier from low to high. Rub on another round of eucalyptus chest rub. Give her some snuggles and put her back to bed. She keeps waking up crying. You cave and bring her into bed with you. She passes out on your pillow. The entire pillow. There's nowhere left for you to sleep, but hey--your baby's sick. You make sacrifices. After a few hours, she seems to be sleeping and breathing better. You think you might die from sleep deprivation. So you carefully move her to her crib. No dice. She wants none of it. So you bring her back to your bed, resigned to a sleepless night for yourself, but at least she'll sleep. She bounces up and down on her back. She sticks her finger up your nose and says, "Mommy nose," then laughs. She sticks her finger in your eye and says, "Mommy eye," then laughs. She blows raspberries on your face. She kicks your stomach and laughs. You remember why this particular child doesn't sleep in your bed. Clearly she feels alright, so you take her back to her crib. She cries. You feel bad and you don't want her to get all congested again, so you bring her back to your bed. Lather, rinse, repeat until the alarm goes off at 5:00. The following night you put her in her own crib at bedtime, all kinds of hopeful. She goes to sleep. You eventually go to sleep. And then a seal breaks into your house and starts barking! Wait, no, it's not a seal. It's your kid. You shoot straight up in bed. You sigh and head for the bathroom to start the routine. You're a little groggy, so your fight with the Tylenol bottle escalates. At some point in the search for the chest rub the cough and cry stop, and she seems to be back asleep. You don't want to wake her if she's actually sleeping. After all, it will probably be a very long night. And you just moved the rocking chair into your classroom, so you need some time to figure out a new Comfort Station. You check to make sure she's still breathing (she is), then go back to bed. Then the monologue starts. "Most of the time croup is harmless. It's just a variant of the common cold that includes a scary-sounding cough. So she's probably fine. It sounds worse than it is. But sometimes they stop breathing. Rarely, but still. I should check. No, I can't keep getting up to check. She's fine. But what if she's not? I'm sure she is. There's no use getting all worked up and scared. But sometimes it really is serious. She could stop breathing and I wouldn't even know. I should get her. She should sleep in our bed. But she never sleeps well in our bed. She'd sleep much better in her own bed. She's not going to stop breathing, so I should just let her sleep in her own bed. But she might stop breathing, and if she's in her own bed, I won't hear it, so I should just bring her in here so I can hear her breathing. But she won't get any sleep..." And on and on and on forever and ever and ever. Sometimes the night is long because the cough keeps happening and you spend most of the night in the rocking chair or on the couch or on the bathroom floor, running hot and steamy water, suctioning her nose, applying the chest rub, keeping track of the time and administering Tylenol for the sore throat and headache, rubbing her back and calming her back to sleep each time the cough starts back up. Sometimes the night is long because the cough doesn't come back, but you wake up every 30 minutes, jump out of bed, and run in to check that she's still breathing. When the alarm goes off at 5:00 you have to decide if you're going to stay home with her. It's a gamble--she might be feeling better after a good night's sleep, so it could be a waste of a sub. But she might still feel awful, and waiting until she wakes up at 7 to call the sub makes them mad. You realize in the sleep-deprived fog that it's a no-brainer. Obviously you stay home with her.
Croup is stupid.
But it's not all bad. Because your spirited and independent little girl only cuddles with you when she's sick. So there's that. And she takes two naps a day, during which time you can burn through several episodes of Dawson's Creek.
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| No one should be this cute with a snot bubble coming out of her nose. But here she is. |
1 comment:
Croup SUUUUUUCKS. My first born had it ONCE years ago. Makes everyone miserable. I love that picture with the snot bubble!!! It's perfect and I love how happy she looks! LOL!
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