the croup is the crap

sunday afternoon, we noticed kate was starting to lose her voice and cough here and there. i was hoping she wasn't getting a cold and kind of chalked it up to her being really tired, which she was. by about 9 that night, she was down for her nap [i know, i know, 9pm for a NAP? what are you crazy? no, we're geniuses :)] anyway, she started coughing so much and so severely that she couldn't catch her breath - at all. she was barking and wheezing and scaring the crap out of us. weston was sure it was an asthma attack since he's struggled with it his entire life. we decided she needed to go to the hospital. i think i stayed pretty composed (hearing your child labor for every breath is unnerving to say the least) and got her in a fresh diaper and fresh pjs so we could take her to the ER.

getting out in the cold night air seemed to really help, she was able to really calm down and catch up with her breathing. by the time we got to the hospital, she was back to her crazy self - doing laps running circles in the waiting room. we got her to a room and she was checked out and determined to have croup. i guess the main difference between croup and asthma is that you labor on the exhaling or labor on the inhaling (i think asthma was the exhaling). anyway, they gave her a dose of steroids to open her airways and she had to sit under a cool mist hose for what felt like all night (she was NOT a fan of the continuous burst of air in her face). needless to say, we were all relieved and ready to go home when she got discharged.

she's doing pretty well but still sounds pretty bad. of course the nights are worse, so there's that to deal with. hopefully she'll get some good sleep tonight.

not a fun close to the weekend, but we're glad she's a survivor! :)