Croup

Thursday morning, I awoke to the sound of Grace coughing like a barking seal. It wasn't too bad at first sounds, but then rapidly progressed into a series of "arf, arf, arrrrf, arrrrrrrrrrffffff, aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrfffffffffff" followed by a garbled, "Mommy!"

I walked into her room, and she promptly began to bark again. "Hmmm, that doesn't sound good," I thought. As I got closer to her sitting up in bed, I heard what sounded like Darth Vadar breathing, which can be properly labeled as stridor.

"Ah crap!" I thought. I knew that croup is irritation in the upper airway, but wasn't sure what that meant in terms of her Alpha-1. Would this virus be damaging her lungs? Or, could this be something more severe like bronchitis? In either case, it was time to get an appointment with the pediatrician. I then wondered if her former preemie lungs also contributed. It really didn't matter though. She needed to see the doctor.

So Grace was in heaven, home from school for the day with her mommy all to herself. She watched the full line up on PBS kids, and then we went to the pediatrician's office.

When Dr. M walked into the room, he said, "She sounds pretty noisy." Grace smiled and then proceeded to cough, cough, cough for a minute.

"Well, I'd say she sounds pretty croupy. Let's look in your throat Grace."

She said, "Ahhhhhhh!" Then, she promptly started to cough again. "Okay Grace. It looks pretty irritated in there. Let's listen to your lungs. Deep breath, please. Now, say the letter E for me."

"Eeeeeeeeee, cough, eeeeee, cough, cough, cough...eeee."

"Well, that is some pretty loud stridor Gracie. Let's give you some medicine to help you out."

We left with a prescription for oral prednisone, and now Gracie thinks and acts like she is supergirl. It is pretty funny to see her doing things like running in place or jumping jacks just because she can. She got up out of bed this morning, and promptly started running in place. I'd say she has energy in spades from her prednisone. LOL She never rises and shines in the morning. She is my grumpy gus.

Her breathing is still a bit noisy, but that cough is less. She is sleeping well, and hopefully, she is on the mend now. If we can make it through the next 3 days with prednisone Gracie. She is quite the character with a rolling set of emotions and energy. :)