The Cold that Won't Quit!!!

Tavin has had a bad cold/virus since 5 days or so before our West Virginia trip, so that puts us at like 2 and 1/2 weeks of waxing and waning runny nose, cough and congestion. Ugh. Well, now, Koen has joined the sick party and yesterday he developed the runny nose and today it was really obvious.

Both boys were disturbed by their coughs during their afternoon naps and they woke up early. It is a gorgeous, warm Fall day here today, so I took advantage of another opportunity to walk (we already walked to the library after Tavin woke up early from his morning nap due to coughing). I took the boys for a quick trip to the playground closeby with swings. Both boys got their own time on the swing. When I was pushing Koen, Tavin was cracking up as I let him pretend to push him and Koen got a kick out of it too. When I put Tavin in the baby swing, Koen insisted on pushing him. That made me nervous as Koen's physical attention towards Tavin has gotten more aggressive lately, but thankfully he had great self-control and did a good, albeit shaky job.

So, back to these colds... Tavin laid down fine although coughed and did cry a little bit. Koen also laid down pretty well, but at around 10pm he woke up violently barking/coughing...croup. He was having such a hard time breathing he couldn't even swallow his own saliva. Poor little guy! He was shaking from the experience. We tried the steam approach, but after about 20 mins. or more, we found that wasn't making a difference. So, then I took him outside for another 20 mins. Unfortunately, that didn't make a difference either. We called our friend, Megan, who is a doctor, and she suggested we bring him to the ER if when he was calm we could hear "strider." We totally could hear it, so I took him to the ER around 11pm.

It was packed at the ER, so it took until about midnight until we were seen by a doctor. They immediately decided to give Koen the steroids and the breathing treatment. Koen was super sweet, laid back and exhausted before the meds. But you should see him now! He is hyped up on the drugs and overtiredness and it is intense! Thankfully, it sounds like we should be going home in 30 mins. or so. Here's hoping that we are sleeping in our own beds soon!