Croup

It was New Year's Eve and Dexter fell right asleep in his brand new big boy bed. Ben and I settled in for a low-key, relaxing New Year's celebration and started our new Netflix series, "Big Love". In the middle of the first episode, we heard awful noises coming from Dexter's room and ran to see what was going on. We found Dexter sitting up in bed, red faced, gasping for breath - it was terrifying! I remembered my mother telling me about bringing the child into the bathroom steamed up with hot water from the shower to relieve croup symptoms. So we tried that. It didn't do any good and seemed to only make Dexter more upset (which made Mommy and Daddy more upset). We brought him back to his room and Ben watched Dexter while I called the doctor. Dexter's doctor had just gotten home from a party and, after hearing Dexter's symptoms, immediately diagnosed Croup and gave us the option of getting some steroids to reduce the inflammation in his bronchial tubes so he would breath more comfortably. We took that option and right at midnight, Dexter got his medication. Mommy and Daddy didn't sleep much that night. Not the rocking nights we used to have and not the relaxing evening we had planned...Happy New Year, parents everywhere!