Croup!

Douglas has croup! He went to bed Thursday night with a slightly runny nose. About an hour after he fell asleep, he woke up screaming & coughing & fighting for air. This went on ALLL night long. He'd sleep for an hour or two & then wake up FIGHTING to breathe. Kinda scary to say the least. However, when he got up Friday morning, he seemed just fine - just a little bit of a runny nose. I was debating whether or not I should take him to the doctor - Allen said to go but I kind of like the 3 day rule (no fever, just a runny nose? I figured it could probably wait, but the breathing thing really had me nervous.) Anyhow, Douglas took a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and the whole time he sounded like he was having serious issues breathing - like he had a giant phlegm wad in his throat. When he woke up - it was the same thing, screaming & fighting for air. It was like he couldn't get any air into his lungs - something was blocking it. So I took him to an Urgent Care center. The doc there was FANTASTIC. I gave him a very basic description of D's symptoms and Doc Bennett said, "Was he coughing like this?" and demonstrated PERFECTLY what Douglas sounded like. "And was he breathing like this?" and again demonstrated perfectly how D was breathing. Then he told me it was a classic case of viral croup! They gave him an oral steriod treatment and did a nebulizer treatment too. Doc Bennett said to make sure we have a cool mist humidifier running in the room that Douglas sleeps in and a list of instructions to follow to help make him a bit more comfortable. So we got home last night and it was obvious that the medicine worked. Douglas slept like an angel. He woke up one time but went back to sleep really easily. He did have a couple of issues breathing last night, but nothing major - not enough to wake him up anyhow. He's got a bit of a cough today but we are still following the Doc's orders. Things should clear up in the next day or two but for now, it's kinda yucky!!!