Crappy croup

All of a sudden Porter wakes up in the middle of his nap today totally crying, which he never does. When I went in to calm him down I noticed that his cry was very hoarse and sounded like barking, and he was having a hard time breathing. Normally I can calm him down if he's upset, but not today. I started to freak out because I couldn't calm him down, he sounded awful and it seemed like he wasn't able to really breath. I called the pediatrician and they made an appointment right away to bring him in. I was babysitting my friend's daughter and she was sleeping, so thank goodness Jeff had gotten home so I was able to take Porter to the doctor. By the time we got in the car and were driving there he calmed down and seemed fine, of course, except for a little hoarseness.

It turns out that croup is a virus infection of the vocal cords and larynx and since kids have small vocal cords any little bit of inflammation can cause problems. So when a child gets upset and is crying then it's hard for them to breath. It can apparently change from mild to severe many times. And it's worse at night. So a child can seem fine during the day but be horrible at night. It's usually part of a cold. Not every kid who gets this virus will get croup, some will just get a cold. This came on so quick that I asked the doc about that - he said it normally does come on suddenly. He gave Porter 3 days worth of steroids which helps lessen the inflammation. The croup should last from 4-5 days, with the first 1-2 days being the worst. So my poor little guy is all hoarse sounding, and when he cries it is so sad. We are to just keep him as calm as possible. They gave us some tips on what to do tonight if he has problems - hopefully we won't have to do any of it. We'll see. Here's hoping for a good, solid nights sleep for my poor little guy.