Icky Sickies

Blah, the kiddos have the crud. Go anywhere that kiddos are and you will hear a couple very distinct cruddy coughs. Apparently, it is nation wide but this crum needs to vacate my house and life promptly!   It feels like we have had it forever, but it has only been just over a week. 

It started with a little bit if a stuffy nose for Thomas. He then told us his nose hurt a "little bit." That was on Tuesday and by Wednesday he was a coughing mess. He didn't have a fever but his mood said he felt crummy. He went to bed early and was up every 10-15 minutes hacking away. After trying all the stuff that normally helps clear him up and a particularly bad hard to breathe croupy seal bark stridor cough we packed the kids up and headed into the ER. We decided to take Elin in too as she had also just started with the runny nose and cough.  We figured she was about a day or two behind Thomas with the same nasty bug.  After a short visit they were able to give both kids some oral steroids to help them breath better and hopefully rid themselves of the cough. We all went home and tried to get some much needed sleep.

Over the weekend Thomas' cough seemed to get better and Elin's started to get worse. Monday night he had a fever of 100.4 so I checked in with her doctor on Tuesday and she said if she wasn't better by Wednesday to bring her in. So there we were at the doctors office, Thomas running his show, me explaining how long the kiddos were sick and Elin smiling away. Aside from being a little more clingy and hearing this horrendous cough, it was hard to think she was sick, that was soon to change.  The doctor said she hear a bit of gunk in her lungs so she sent us home with a nebulizer to help open her airways and get the gunk out.  It was like we went to the doctor on the peak of her “I am going to be miserable and need to be held constantly because this really sucks” phase.  Thomas was a fantastic helper as he showed and helped Elin with the nebulizer.  It seems that she will do anything he does so we were doing a lot of turns with the tub with the machine on for her and off for him.  He was so excited that he could help her get better.

It was a rough couple of days trying to keep both kids comfortable enough to breath and sleep was almost a luxury. It seemed like every time she was comfortable enough to sleep she would need to cough and then the process would start over again. I'm not going to kid here when my kids are struggling to breath comfortably I'm one nervous Mama. So after a particularly rough morning on Thursday and a little girl who is not fussy being pretty inconsolable we headed back into the doctor.

This visit was much better as the doctor felt that her lungs were already sounding less gunky. Yay. She sent us home with more orders for fluids and the nebulizer treatments as needed. Both kiddos still have these nasty coughs, along with what feels like half of the kids in Seattle, but they are on the mend.