Croup

I'm thinking of changing the title of this blog. How does "Infirmary Report" sound? Catchy, huh?


Fayetteville schools were closed on Monday, so Rudy took Caleb to the pediatrician to try to get something to stop the cough that developed on Sunday. Also - Caleb had some strange welts show up on his arms and his face on Saturday night. We think maybe they were related to the massive amounts of LaLa's banana bread that he ate over the course of 2 days. The bread has pecans in it and he's never had pecans. That was the only thing we could figure out that was different that might have caused welts. (Side story: Caleb was riding home from school in his carseat and found the bag that had his leftover banana bread from breakfast. He asked me what it was and I told him. He then ate it and said, "Mama, I want more 'nana toast." I thought that was pretty funny!) Anyway...the doctor prescribed allergy medicine. Our pediatrician has prescribed allergy medicine approximately 80% of the times that we have gone to see him. The allergy medicine never does anything and we end up going back 3-4 days later, seeing a different doctor and finding out that Caleb has either a bad respiratory infection, an ear infection, pneumonia or our new one...croup. We tried the allergy medicine and whaddyaknow...it didn't work. Caleb's teacher told Rudy that he couldn't sleep yesterday at naptime because of his cough. He "slept" with me last night because he was awake from approximately 1:00-3:00 coughing his head off. I called the pediatric clinic this morning to try to see a different pediatrician but everyone was booked solid. We ended up at not-so-convenient care again, like we usually do. When we finally got in to see a doctor, she listened to him and said that he probably had croup. She wrote a prescription for a steroid (not orapred) and put him back on albuterol. We came home with a Happy Meal and Caleb is now in bed. I can hear him coughing and it breaks my heart. He's coughing so hard that I'm afraid he's going to throw up. I wish I could make it better. I hope the medicine helps...fast.

Tomorrow is Caleb's Christmas program at school. I'm hoping to get some video of it and (of course) a bunch of pictures. I found out today that they have costumes. He's going to be wearing angel wings. Mrs. Natalie said that he doesn't like them. Figures. He does know his song and the motions that go with it. Should be interesting.

Jerry, Sherry and Rebecca are coming to see us tomorrow. They are hoping to get here in time for the Christmas program. We're going to go out to dinner tomorrow night. Saturday afternoon, we're hosting the Villines family for Christmas. There will be approximately 12 people at our house Saturday night for dinner. Rudy is baking a ham and I'm making hashbrown casserole, green bean bundles and deviled eggs. We're also having rolls, corn and a couple of pies. Rudy and I are excited about this. We've never hosted a Holiday meal before. Fingers crossed...