My Poor Little Chickens...

That's the newest line in our house. I think it comes from Tony's side of the family since both of his parents (who are divorced) have said it at least once this week.
My kids are sick. It breaks my heart. :(
On Thursday of last week, Rylan started to cough and her nose started to run. I felt bad for her since just a week prior she had a nasty GI issue, puking & diarrhea... gross! She was really crusty and had a hard time sleeping because her nose was so stuffed. What a nightmare! She's been gradually getting better and has less of a cough, less nose running today and is acting more and more like herself. She has even slept in until 8 am for the past 2 days!
I didn't know how hard it could be to see your kids sick until Tatum got sick too. It's bad at 2, even worse at 5.5 months! Tatum started showing signs of a cold on Saturday. She was coughing and her nose was running. On Sunday night Tony, Tatum and I were watching Scott & Tessa skate (GO CANADA GO!) when she started coughing again. It was undeniably croup. The loud, seal like bark coming from my little baby! She kept coughing and was having a hard time catching her breath. I debated whether I should take her in to the ER to get checked out. It's funny, being a paramedic, I'm SO hesitant to take her to the ER because I don't want to waste anybody's time. I know how often this happens. But as her breathing rate picked up and her cough continued, I decided to take her. We got there at 11 and waited about 10 minutes before being triaged. They took her vitals and heard the god-awful cough. Her oxygen saturation was a little low, so they took us back right away. As soon as we got to the room, we got the boot! An ambulance was bringing someone in. I felt like cursing the ambulance... but I couldn't really!
So we went out to the waiting room and waited for the next available bed. So to make a long story (or wait) short, she had severe croup and was given a steroid to calm the inflammation of her larynx. I was told that if her breathing worsens or gets louder to bring her back. Tony inflated the air mattress in her room for me so I could sleep in there and keep a close eye and we settled down to bed around 3am.
On to the next day. Tatum still wasn't acting herself. She was crying a lot, coughing (not the croup cough), having trouble eating because her nose was stuffed and not having a lot of wet diapers as a result. I was told that after day 3 she would improve. It was currently day 3, so I waited it out patiently. Day 4: Still not well. I got out my stethoscope to listen to her breathing and could hear a bit of wheezing. Tony and I discuss it and thought it was probably just part of the croup working it's way out. I wasn't completely convinced, but I went along with it. A few hours pass and Tatum still wasn't eating much and hadn't slept. She was getting more and more fussy, and she was becoming a really noisy breather. I took out the old stethoscope again and sure enough my poor little chicken was full of wheezes and she was using a lot of accessory muscles to breathe. I decided to take her back into Emerg. Once again we were taken back right away, except this time we didn't get booted out of our room!
She was assessed and a Respiratory Therapist came in and gave her some Ventolin. It didn't take all the wheezing away, but it did make things better. We were told she probably had the virus know as RSV. It's quite common although her cough will probably last for 4-6 weeks!!
Anyway, today, she is MUCH better and I actually got a few smiles out of her! The first 7 - 10 days are known to be the worst and we are on day 6... almost done! Hopefully that's all the illness we'll get in this house this winter!