Poor Mia

Well yesterday we had our first ER visit for Mia. Both my kids get croup which is a cold right in your throat. What it does is constrict your airway to where it makes it hard to breath and to where when they cough they sound like a barking seal. Cold air is supposed to help it or your cold air humidifier. Well it started on Tuesday night and so all day Wednesday I had the humidifier on and I was just watching her closely to see how she was doing. She was having a hard time breathing but nothing too crazy. Croup always gets worse at night so around midnight on Wednesday night it was starting to get worse. I just laid with her and she would be able to sleep and breath so I thought ok we won't take her in. Then at 3am she woke up and I was still on the fence do I take her do I not. Then at around 5:30am it was getting pretty bad where I decided to take her.

We went to Mindy's Place which is at John C Lincoln hospital and it is an ER just for kids. They got us right in and started her off with some liquid steroid and a breathing treatment. They have this little tiny mask that we tried to hold on her and she screamed the whole time. I hated having to hold her down but I knew in the end it would help her get better. It was sad but nothing I couldn't handle. After her breathing treatment she had worked herself up so much she just slept on my chest. Well it really wasn't working so we ended up doing two more breathing treatments. The second treatment was a little better because they just used a tube to put in front her her face so we didn't have to hold the mask over her. The third treatment was the best because she was totally asleep.

Michael's first visit to the ER was for the same thing. I did not take him though because Mia was an infant so Mike went with him. I remember it only took two breathing treatments and liquid steroid before Michael was doing good. So I was a little worried that we needed to do three treatments. So she was still pretty noisy after the third treatment so they wanted to to do a chest x ray to make sure she didn't swallow anything. So as I was walking into the x ray room the guy was like we are going to have to put her in this and shows me this contraption that was AWFUL. Here is a picture of it.


This is the part I almost could not handle. So they stick Mia in this thing where her feet are dangling out the bottom and then enclose her in there where her head is just exposed out of the hole. She was not hysterical but you could tell she was totally freaked out she was crying the whole time and I was to the side of her but since she couldn't move her head she kept looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. I was totally crying but trying to stay strong for her. I know it didn't hurt her but it was so sad to see her in that position. The x ray techs were awesome and moved as fast as possible. Everything looked good in the x ray and finally she started sounding good to where we were able to go home.

We were there for six hours, but I will tell you it was kind of nice spending the one on one time with her. Plus she was so snugly we would just hang out and talk and she would sleep on me. At one point after she fell asleep I laid her on the bed and asked the nurse to watch her while I went and got a coffee at their coffee shop real quick. When I came back I just had some coffee and watched her sleep. It was so peaceful and nice. She is doing much better today but you can tell she is tired. Here is a pic of her causing trouble already.