She's got the Croup

Uh, what is croup? Never heard of it, doesn't sound appeasing and almost sounds like someone might be "flying the coup"!

Well, no one in our household is flying the coup and "croup" actually isn't as bad as it sounds, I guess. Think whooping cough. Or, better yet, imagine yourself on the beach with a bunch of seals barking their way up the sea shore. There you go. Barking seals. That's exactly the way it sounds.

In the middle of the night, I am assuming that Bea had a nightmare and she awoke at about 1:30. The cry was definitely not normal. She sounded like a barking seal, yes. But it also sounded like she couldn't catch her breath because in between the barking/cough she couldn't get enough air in.

Josh took her to the emergency room. Olive had awoken and I tended to her (who, also has cold symptoms which I hope doesn't turn into the croup, too). I don't have many details of the hospital visit except what Josh told me:

-Bea threw up all over him because she was so upset
-The nurse came in to take the information while she was screaming, not during a 20 minute quiet period they did have, so he told her to call me for it, which she never did
-She got two shots of 'roids to open up her breathing passageway
-She had to sit in front of one of those devices that blows steam on your face and didn't like it
-She was probably most contagious a day or two ago
-Josh left a Dr. Brown's bottle at the hospital (our supply has been dwindling for a while now, which is why he made a point to tell me, I think)

Supposedly this viral infection doesn't last that long and is its worst at night. I think we were all finally back asleep by 4am, but when you are living in a cloud as we have been the last couple days, who really knows. It's purely an estimate.

One scare is far too many...now we're up to two. I swear that each has cut at least a year or two off my life from the situational stressors.