Croup. My sleepless nights can be summed up in that one word. My 8 year old came down with a bad case of viral croup at 2:35am Wednesday night. How do I know exactly when you may ask? For those of you that have been through croup with your kids you understand. There is no forgetting the absolutely terrifying, helpless feeling that comes over you when your child awakens telling you she can’t breathe. When you have a newborn you read about croup in all the baby books. The loud barking cough that can come over your baby in the middle of the night seems like a common illness among small children. Once my kids turned 4 I thought we were lucky to have never experienced this illness but no such luck. My kids have had bouts with Croup starting at age 4, but it always came on in the fall and although always scary I always felt in control but not this time. When my daughter came in to our room complaining that she couldn’t breathe I honestly didn’t know what to think at first but I had a good suspicion. I ran to the bathroom and hooked up the nebulizer, a device I was lucky to have from our past experiences. I got her calmed down and eventually got her back to bed. She slept the rest of the night and woke up ok in the morning. Then another “episode” happened, same drill gave her a breathing treatment and calmed her down then a couple hours later it happened again so off to the doctor we went. One thing you know if you have ever had a child with croup is that cold air can be a savior, for some reason it opens the airways and can calm them down pretty quickly. So on our way to the doctor my daughter had her window open- good and bad- she was breathing normally but of course the doctor looked at me like I was nuts when I got there because Alexis was absolutely fine. So I was sent home no medicine and told to keep doing what I was doing. Wonderful! I’m not one for over-medicating my children but don’t doctors understand that if we felt we were doing enough at home that we would never make a trip to the doctor in the first place!! Sure enough soon after we arrived home 2 more episodes and her breathing was not good in between. So on the phone again, now I’m wondering if I should go to the emergency room. The doctor reassured me that she didn’t need to go to the ER and she prescribed a 5 day dose of steroids. She took one dose in the evening and seemed to be better, then has a sound night of sleep so I thought we were over our first hurdle. Silly me, morning comes and she is struggling to breathe…again. So I said to my husband, she can’t keep doing this, so we rushed her to the ER. The minute they saw her they were immediately very concerned. They shuffled her in quickly, her blood oxygen level was 90%-not good for a child so they put her on oxygen followed by a breathing treatment. She was slowly improving and eventually her oxygen was back at 100%- thank God. They took a chest x-ray to make sure nothing else was going on and that came back clear. So the diagnosis was viral croup that was being complicated by her mild seasonal allergies. I say mild because she does have spring allergies but she doesn’t even take daily meds for them so I would never think they would complicate another illness. After all this they sent us home and said yes you guessed it keep doing what you have been doing but this time we already had the medicine so that was ok. My husband was not happy about having to put her on steroids but I think she definitely needed the medicine. From what I have researched online, the duration that children are put on steroids to treat croup is not long enough to suffer of the adverse side effects of being on steroids. The only complaint Alexis has had is that her stomach hurt after taking it but she also was not eating so I think that was a big factor as well.
So after experiencing the worse of the illness (I pray) what are my thoughts? This was one of the worst experiences I have ever had with one of my children. The helplessness that I felt when she was struggling to breathe cannot be put into to words. My only thought was at what point to I call 911? It really was terrifying.
Read more…
So yesterday was opening day of Little League Baseball, aka the end of life as I know it until August. Opening day is a sort of metaphor for the rest of the season-anticipation, excitement, parades, back to back games and then pure exhaustion!!! Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing my kids put their heart and soul into something that they love but let’s be honest between practices and games for two kids it’s enough to drive you insane. And if you have more than two kids in baseball, no worries because you must already be insane!
My weekend started off with a scrimmage game on Friday when my 5 year was bound and determined to wear the brand new “white” yes I said white Phillies jersey that the Easter bunny was kind enough to had brought him. At what point do you throw in the towel and learn to pick your battles? For me it was after 20 minutes of yelling back and forth until I realized that we were arguing about a jersey that I know he loves to wear and after all he did want to wear it to a baseball game.
So on to Sunday, 8:30am parade, followed by a very long ceremony at the park. I have to admit that as crazy as a day it was I loved every second of it. Just to see all the kids in their uniforms and all the parents cheering them on makes you realize just what parenting is all about.
So let’s play some ball……and somehow keep up with everything else in life! Over the next couple of weeks I am going to try and share some tips on surviving the baseball season with your sanity. Please share any tips you may have after all I am a rookie this! Yes the pun was intended.
Franny
I have to send an apology out to my readers, I thought I knew all I needed to in order to create a blog but who knew there was so much “technical stuff’ behind it! I worked in marketing for 11 years and even did work on the company web site but I have to admit I was totally ignorant to all the behind the scenes work that goes into creating a website. This has brought me back to days in computer class of MS DOS creating line by commands to make the screen say a never ending stream of “Hi”! So I think we are back on track so come back on Monday, I promise it will say more than “Hi”!!
My name is Frances Murray, aka “Franny”. I am a mother of two from Chicago, Illinois. My husband and I have a daughter, Alexis, who is 8 and a son, Tommy, who is 5. I have worked part time, full time and now I am a stay at home mom. I would love to say that I made the decision to quit my ultra demanding, stressful job to spend more time with my kids but that’s not quite the way it worked out.
The truth of the matter is that I left my part time job of 11 years in 2008 to take on a full time job which I thought was a once in a lifetime opportunity. That opportunity turned into a 24/7 job which would be fine if I didn’t have 3 people depending on me at home as well. But the economy came to my rescue and due to the startup company I was hired for never “starting up” I was laid off. Somewhat of a blessing in disguise but I found myself wondering OK NOW WHAT?!?!
I have to say being home with my kids is absolutely wonderful, well most of the time. But being a stay at home mom is not at all what I thought it was. I have the unique perspective of understanding the views of the stay at home mom vs. working mom and let me tell you they couldn’t be more different. When I worked full time I thought stay at home moms had it made. Come on they have all the time in the world to get chores done, grocery shopping and even time to get a workout in everyday.
Then it happened and I have all the time in the world whoo hoo….or do I? Do I work out ? ugh no! Do I feel that I get everything that I should get done through the day? absolutely not! The truth is that stay at home moms have the weight of the world on their shoulders. Don’t get me wrong so do working moms. But it’s the expectations that we put on ourselves that keep us busy. Let’s face it we are home so why isn’t the house perfect, all the laundry done, groceries fully stocked and a then of course a perfect snack waiting for the kids when they get home from school? Where does my time go throughout the day?- I honestly can’t tell you but my house is perfect right? nope.
So needless to say, I have been having a hard time adjusting to my new life. I was in stay at home “limbo” for a while. So what to do now? The answer is ORGANIZE! This blog is my attempt to take control of my life. I do TRY to write down a weekly menu. I also work on one section of organization in my house every week. While transitioning to my new organized life I have found so many great resources, tips and products that I thought why not share!?
I am also pretty confident that I am not the only one out there in this unique situation. I look forward to my readers sharing as well. We can all benefit from each other’s life experiences.
So why come back? You can look forward to a weekly, sometimes all too honest, blog about everyday life. A weekly menu so you can plan your shopping and meals for the following week. A weekly plan of attack outlining a section of your home to organize. And lastly, a spotlight of the week where I share information on businesses, products or websites that I cannot live without.
Thanks for stopping by!
Franny
Come back for the launch of our blog on March 29th!