One BIG Scare!

One crying sick little boy...one 911 call...one visit with some awesome EMT's at the Brodt casa and one lovely late night visit to the ER and that pretty much sums up our Sunday evening. Very scary and very long!

We had an incredibly busy, but productive day on Sunday (the entire weekend actually) and as a result, we ended up getting home somewhat later in the day after completing our weekly errands and doing some shopping in Cedar Hill. We went about our evening as usual having dinner a bit later than normal, but otherwise, it was a pretty standard Sunday evening for us. After dinner, we went ahead and put Hudson to bed for the evening as it was already 9 pm and we usually try to have him in bed by 8 or 8:30. Well, around 10:30 or so, David was watching tv in our upstairs living room and I was in my office doing some work when we heard Hudson coughing. Nothing big at the time, just a couple of coughs, that was it....a few minutes later he started coughing again and this time it was much worse and he started gagging and crying hysterically. We tried to calm him down and were both trying to figure out what was wrong, but nothing was working. We began to become concerned and even more so as he continued to cry, cough and started having a lot of difficulty breathing. He sounded like he had come down with some type of severe respiratory infection or something. Panic had set in because he was so hysterical and breathing so erratically, so we tried to check in his mouth and throat to see if possibly he had swallowed something and gotten it lodged in his throat, but of course, that really didn't work because Hudson just wouldn't really let us get a good look. I went upstairs and surveyed his crib to see if anything out of the ordinary was in his crib and I found nothing. He only had a blanket and two small stuffed animals in the crib and I throroughly checked the stuffed animals to see if any eyes, noses, etc. were missing or anything and there was nothing visible to indicate that he could have swallowed anything from his crib. We decided it would be best to head to the hospital as he was not calming down and his breathing patterns seemed to worsen as a few minutes went by, but as I was gathering our things to leave David decided that he would feel more comfortable calling 911 instead since we are not really that close to a decent hospital. So, the paramedics arrived pretty quickly and check out Hudson to see if they can determine what is going on. By this time, Hudson had finally stopped crying and oddly enough, was pretty much acting completely normal with the exception of being very quiet for the most part. The EMT's checked him out and couldn't find anything wrong...they said that his chest sounded great, but we were able to get Hudson to talk a bit while they were here in order for them to be able to hear his voice and his breathing. Once they heard him, they did agree that something did not seem right especially if he hadn't been sick already or anything. They said that it could be possible that he had something lodged in his throat or possibly not, but based on his symptoms and his age, they recommended a visit to the hospital, which is where we planned on heading anyways. So, at this point we decide to drive him ourselves to Children's Medical Center based on the paramedics recommendations. We got to the hospital probably around 11:30 or so , give or take and were seen very quickly by the doctors. They did all of the normal tests as usual and once they were able to listen to Hudson's breathing and look down his throat, they asked us if we had ever heard of croup...well, I told them that I had but that I didn't know much about it and at this point all of the doctors that we saw said that the symptoms were that of croup and that's what they initially thought it might be however, they also said that it was definitely possible that he could have swallowed something so they recommended that we go ahead and get x-rays in order to completely rule out the possibility that he had swallowed a foreign object. The x-ray experience was HORRIBLE! That poor tech must have wanted to scream and I am surprised that he didn't run out the door because Hudson was being so difficult....David and I had to put on pseudo space gowns in order to hold Hudson down for the x-rays and unfortunately, he wasn't even about to cooperate so the tech had to call another tech for backup so that one of them could hold Hudson in place for the final x-rays. To get to the point of my incredibly long story, we returned to the respiratory waiting area and within a half hour or so after the x-rays the doctor came to see us and told us that the x-rays did not show anything in Hudson's throat or chest and that he did in fact have croup. They gave Hudson a dose of some steriod medication orally in order to reduce the swelling in his throat and advised us to make an appt. for Tuesday with Hudson's pediatrician for a follow up. So, in the end everything is fine and Hudson is okay, but it sure was one chaotic and scary evening! We didn't get home until 2 am and we were all absolutely pooped! Hudson has seemed to feel a lot better since Sunday and I actually took him this afternoon to see his pediatrician and he thought that he was progressing well also. Croup normally only lasts 3 - 5 days, so hopefully, he will be feeling better and will be back to his hyper little self in no time. I am just so thankful that it wasn't anything more severe and that we reacted as quickly as we did. I was absolutely convinced that he had somehow swallowed something an was going to end up needing an emergency surgery or something! Even though croup is rarely severe or life threatening, it certainly can be and I just feel very blessed that it wasn't worse than it was and that Hudson seems to be recovering very quickly. Now I get to be scared of what our hospital bills are going to be, yikes!