Our Adventures in Mysterious Croup/Virus/Radiator Thingies

Our story begins Sunday night (that is almost a full week ago).

Sunday night, I kept hearing Sam on the monitor waking up. I was wondering what the deal was but we negligent to get up because if he knows you are awake, there is no way in hell is going back to sleep. But then he starts making noises that I had never heard before so I got up and went in.

He was struggling so hard to breath. He had the "barking like a seal" cough but it was accompanied by deep wheezing and obvious struggling to breath. This ranks right up there with one of the scariest moments of my life. Thankfully I had been warned by the lovely Susan Mack (best babysitter ever!) so I knew to go outside in the cold air as fast as I could get us there. I grabbed a blanket and out we went.

He started breathing a lot better and when he was no longer making "noise" to breath, I brought him back inside and he got to sleep with me and Justin the rest of the night. 14 months old and the first time he has EVER slept in our bed. We held out as long as we could.

The next day we take him to the doctor, but not our "OMGTHEBESTDOCTORSINCETHATONETHATINVENTEDPENICILLIN" but "justanotherdoctorthatworksintheclinic". She agreed he had croup, gave him two days of steroids and said he should be a lot better in a few days.

Monday night: Sleeps a little better. Ended up in bed with us again. (I liked it. A lot.)

Tuesday: Coughed a lot but I no longer got him confused with a seal performing for fish. Progress.

Tuesday night: Slept in his crib all night. Only woke up to fuss a bit.

Wednesday: Coughed a lot. Sounds really rattly. Scared the babysitter. I left work early to go get him. He was playing and acting fine. (More on Wednesday later).

Wednesday night: Slept in his crib all night. Barely woke up at all.

Thursday: Still making weird noises making us think we are not getting better and he may be struggling. Decided to steam the hell out of him and if no improvement go to the doctor the next day (doctor agreed b/c he is amazing and talks to us on his personal cell even on his days off... seriously, other than the penicillin guy... this one is the best).

Thursday night: Slept all night without waking at all.

Friday morning: Woke up making the same noises from the previous days. We go to the doctor. Dr. Amazing takes xray and says we are clear of anything major, most of the noise is from his nose and all that mucusy mess. But he has a "raging ear infection."

Am I surprised by this raging ear infection? Nope. He has been a mucus factory for the last three days, he is cutting at least 5 teeth right, if not more, and that is not exaggerating, and he has been sick since Sunday. So lots of antibiotics are in our future. Cool.

He is still rattly this morning but at least I know now that we should be on the upswing. Dr. Amazing is not convinced this is croup now because it isn't following the right pattern. What likely happened is he started with croup, steroids took care of it but another upper respiratory virus took over and here we are.

Now let's travel back to Wednesday, or as I like to refer to it, the day Satan tried to take over. I went to the new house (we closed on a house btw) to show someone we were going to hire to take down the wallpaper. He looks at it, gives me a bid, says it was going to take 6-7 days to complete. I am thinking "totally worth the money because taking down wallpaper sounds like a creative way to torture me for state secrets."

Then I leave. I'm on Shackelford turning on to Financial Parkway (for those not from Little Rock, literally the busiest intersection in Little Rock) and my car starts smoking. I look down and I am running hot. In the red hot.

HOLY SHIT! That's exactly what I thought. I turned the car off and turned on my flashers just hoping someone doesn't plow into to me. And I commence bawling like a baby. I am certifiably hysterical. I tried to call my mechanic (who is our maintenance guy at work but he seems to have adopted me and my car troubles as he put in a new radiator the week before because I had a hole in mine). I can't get a hold of anyone, my car won't start now because it is too hot, I'm praying someone doesn't hit me.... it was quite stressful. Finally after the nice man behind me came to check on me, the car starts and I can move it from the charging cars and angry Little Rock people.

I pull over in a bank off of Financial Parkway and one of my lovely co-workers comes to get me. And she brought the mechanic! What is the major problem?

The hose clamp went bad. That's it. That is a max $5 fix. THANK GOD!

I was able to get the appreciation lunch purchased and back to work. Then the babysitter called and was worried about Sam. I had another mental breakdown (because I can't handle much more) and decide to go get him. I get there and he is fine, just making the same noise he has for the last three days. I am convinced this was just God giving me the rest of the day off because He knew I needed it.

And I had to call and tell the wallpaper guy that we were going to do it ourselves. After the car scare, I really need to save that money to get the car to a dependable point that I don't get stranded on the interstate on the way to work.

So look forward to lots of before and after shots of the house. COMING SOON!