Eli's ordeal

It's been a rough couple of weeks. It all started 2 Mondays ago when Eli's cold turned into an awful cough and a fever. Based on his history, I immediately thought he had pneumonia, so we went to the Twilight Clinic at UK. They thought he had croup, but I was skeptical since his cough always sounds like a croup cough. They gave him an oral steroid and sent us home. The next day I took him to the pediatrician's office for a follow up, and he seemed OK. That evening however he started coughing bad. It continued for hours, and he had a fever again. This time I took him to the ER. We had to wait for hours just to get a room, and we never even got a room, just a bed in the hallway. He still had the awful cough and a fever of 102.2 and was just miserable. He kept falling asleep; anytime he had a minute to just lay in the bed or sit on my lap he would fall asleep. They gave him a breathing treatment at the ER and sent us home with an antibiotic and oral steroid.

Eli playing in the snow on Saturday (between ER visit #2 and #3).

He started having coughing fits as soon as we got home from the ER and continued to cough all day. By later that afternoon (Wednesday) I realized he hadn't peed in 24 hours. I called the nephrologist, and he urged us to take Eli back to the ER. This time we were taken directly back into a room. They took another xray but of his neck this time not his chest. They took some blood work and hooked up an IV. They gave him fluids as well as steroids through the IV. He also received several breathing treatments. Around 11pm we were admitted and brought up to a room in the pediatric unit. He remained on the IV drip all night, and I slept in the hospital bed with him. He slept well, and his fever was gone all night. Thursday morning we woke up, and he was doing well. He was peeing again and drinking and eating some. However, we got stuck waiting around all day to see the kidney doctors. We went down for a kidney ultrasound (He was actually scheduled for a yearly checkup that Tuesday, but we missed it due to this illness.), and then the kidney doctors finally showed up around 3. They cleared him, and we finally got home 24 hours later.

His fever came back that evening, and he was breathing so fast and shallow. I was really nervous, so I made him sleep in the bed with me. I left the window open because the cool air helps with croup. The room was freezing, but I was sweating sleeping next to him with how high his fever was. When he woke up the fever was gone and he seemed to get better over the weekend.



He had a follow up appointment with his pediatrician on Monday, but I forgot about it. On Tuesday morning he woke up, and his cough seemed worse than the day before. I got him in for an appointment with the pediatrician that afternoon. I brought Sarah as well since she had been running a fever and coughing (she ended up having an ear infection). I was pretty surprised when they hooked Eli up to the oximeter, and his oxygen saturation was reading 87-90%. Of course, they sent us back to the ER. This time he definitely had pneumonia.

Aaron and I had to laugh because all along I was saying that he had or was going to get pneumonia. To mine and Aaron's surprise he truly did have croup. We usually dismiss it because everyone always thinks he has croup due to the way his cough always sounds (he barks because of tracheomalacia). The neck xrays proved that he really did have croup since there was swelling in his trachea. He just developed the pneumonia after getting croup. I am so glad that he is finally starting to feel better. It has been an exhausting 2 weeks, and I can't be happier that they are over.