Stridor

We are woefully out of practice of getting up multiple times during the night, and for that I am grateful. To remind us of this, Thursday night into Friday morning, Matthew cried every hour, for about 10-15 minutes, starting at 11:30pm going until 7am.  Nothing really seemed wrong except for a runny nose.  Friday during the day, he rallied and was his usual self, albeit with a little runny nose. 

Then Friday night, 11:30pm, Matthew was crying the saddest, most unusual cry for him.  Going into his room, I could hear it-- stridor.  He sounded like he did the week he had croup (Spring 2011) and spent 5 nights at TCH.  We could hear every breath in, and every breath out.  After about an hour and Tylenol, he seemed to calm enough to go to sleep.  Then 4:30am, he sounded even worse and was laboring to breathe.  So, Matthew and I headed to the ER.  On the road, I was thinking how ironic it was that I just posted the Smart Patient post yesterday and now today I was heading to the hospital. 

About halfway to the ER, I couldn't hear Matthew's breath anymore.  He still sounded croupy when he coughed, but he no longer sounded like Darth Vader and he didn't appear to be struggling to breathe anymore.  So, I turned back home.  Thinking of the Smart Patient book, I figured there was no reason to risk hospital germs when we could wait a few hours to see the weekend pediatrician. 

Later in the morning, the weekend pediatrician looked him over and yep- Matthew has a virus that has caused croup.  Because of his throat anomalies, his episodes of croup/stridor are often more severe than typical.  To keep us out of the ER and the hospital, the doctor decided on treating it aggressively with a shot of steroids rather than the oral version we usually go home with.  The steroid should kick in about bedtime.  Matthew is his usual self today, but the real test will be tonight.  We are all praying for him to have a good night's sleep and that this steroid shot did the trick!

During the day on Friday, Matthew was as active as usual.