Sunday night about midnight Mac woke up. He does that occasionally. He will wake up for whatever reason and come and get one of us. We go back to his room, tuck him back into bed, and that's that. Sunday night he must have had a bad dream because he was pretty upset. He was crying hard and shivering uncontrollably. Doug got to him first and was taking him back to bed. After a few minutes Doug came to get me. He said Mac was breathing strangely and he wanted me to listen to him.
Mac was making a strange wheezing noise like he couldn't catch his breath. My first thought was that he had gotten something stuck in his throat. He could talk okay and told us that he had not put any toys in his mouth. He kept trying to cough, but he couldn't cough normally. He just made this strange barking noise. Doug and I were getting worried and just decided to take him to the ER.
We bundled him up and jumped in the car. We were both praying the whole time. Its scary not knowing what is wrong with your child or how to help him. By the time we got halfway to the hospital he had warmed up and stopped shivering. His breathing had calmed and he had started talking and telling us stories.
We got to the hospital and they were great (they also weren't really busy at the time). They got us back quickly and we saw a doctor in only a few minutes. It turns out Mac has croup. It wasn't our imagination that he got better on the way there. Apparently an attack of croup can improve when you go out into the cold air.
Yesterday Mac and I hung out at home just to make sure he was okay. We made a trip to Walmart to pick up his medicine and ran into a friend of ours there. I was telling her about our ER visit and she said that the same thing happened to them. It made me feel a little less like we had overreacted. Of course in the moment there was no question. Mac couldn't breathe so we had to do something. I guess that is what parenting is all about, figuring it out as you go.
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