Trip to the ER--Round 2

So Thursday night, Will made his second trip to the ER. Not fun!

It all started Thursday around lunch when I picked him up from daycare. As we were driving to meet my mom for lunch, I heard him breathing loudly and wheezing. He wasn't doing it constantly, so I thought I was being paranoid. Around 2 pm, I started getting concerned, so Clay called our doctor's office so we could talk to the nurse. I was thinking it was croup and just wanted to make sure we knew what to do. The doctor's office never called us back (communication issue, that is a whole other topic), and the wheezing started getting worse so we called the after hours nurse. She told us it was in Will's best interest to take him to the ER. So off we went.

Because of Will's age and it was a repiratory issue, we were seen right away. We only had to wait in the waiting room about 10 minutes. I was so thankful because there were a ton of kids there with swine flu symptoms.

(Wearing his "doctors mask"...precaution because of swine flu patients)

Once, we got to a room we were seen by the nurse and then the doctor. After being evaluated, they could not determine exactly what was going on because he was not showing any classic symptoms of croup and he did not have a fever, so it wasn't an infection. They sent Will to have a chest and neck x-ray done so they could look to see if his airway was swollen. The x-ray was no fun at all. Clay and I had to hold him down and he kept looking at us like "why are you doing this to me?"

After the doctor looked at the x-rays, they decided to give him an oral steriod and breathing treatment to reduce any swelling of his airway. Will had to be observed for 2 hours after he received the medication in case he had any type of reaction. He didn't so we were released around 11:15 pm. It was a long night.

(Getting his breathing treatment...not a happy camper!)

The final diagnosis was that he had striders, which is usually accompanies croup. Striders is intense swelling, and narrowing of the voice box and windpipe and is associated high-pitched sound when inhaling.

(Waiting to be released.)

On Friday, we went to Will's peditrician for a follow-up. First, Dr. R apologized for not calling us back on Thursday (totally not his fault, he said he would be having a meeting with his team to address the issue). Then, he evaulated Will. He said he saw no signs of croup and thought that it may have just been an isolated incident. He also told me it could have been a delayed reaction from the cold Will had last week. Will was given a clean bill of health and has not had any issues since receiving treatment at the hospital.

It was scary at the time, but I am glad we were taken care of and Will is okay. Hopefully, this will be our last visit to the ER for a while. I had a talk with Will and told him mommy's nerves can't handle it. Also, I don't want everyone to think I am that mom that takes her kid to the ER everytime something happens. At least our two ER visits were justified and the doctors told us we did the right thing by bringing him in.