Not so common here...

<----Livvie with Croup (December 2006)

One night shortly after Christmas 2006 I woke up to hear my daughter barking like a seal. She was sleeping alone in her Pack and Play at that point, but she was having trouble breathing so I got her out and propped her up against my shoulder and slept with her on the sofa. Rich had already been showing symptoms by that point, and later in the day after Livvie and I got up I started showing symptoms too.

We were all sick for your standard common cold 7 days. Rich and I were bad enough, but at least we could blow our noses and cough guck into tissues. Livvie was 3 months old, and she felt so bad. We tried everything. This was before the American Academy of Pediatrics' ban on cold medicines for kids under 6. So our doc recommended Triaminic Thin Strips for cough and congestion. They didn't work all that great, and I had to cut them into quarters because of her size, so the dang things would get stuck to the tip of my finger and not really get into her mouth. Probably why they didn't work.

I used Sudacare shower tablets with the water running super hot and full blast while we sat in the bathroom. I used Vapo-Bath. I smeared her with Baby Vicks Vaporub. She could still barely breathe.

We slept (when we could sleep) with the vaporizer next to the sofa, on the floor next to our heads. That helped a little bit. The barking continued, until one day it just stopped. Just to be on the safe side we went to the doc and had her ears checked and they were clear, so we dodged that bullet. 

Over two years went by.

Yesterday Livvie's developmental therapist arrived at 4pm and they got right to playing. I sit and watch them, and I noticed while they were playing that Livvie kept rubbing her nose. At 5pm Jodi left, and as she was leaving Livvie sneezed. Guck went everywhere. It was like she had taken her finger out of the dam. That was all she wrote.

When she got up this morning she still had snot running out of her left nostril continuously. Her eyes were glazed. I tried to take her temp with the digital ear thermometer and she lost her mind, screaming hysterically. Every time we wiped her nose she would start crying. I called the doc and they had an opening, so in we went.

They took her temp in her armpit. She cried. 100.7. Doc came in and the otoscope sent her into choking hysterics. Rich had to restrain her against his chest and shoulders so doc could look in her ears. Her ears, once again, are clear.

She has a cold.

All we can really do is manage her symptoms. The fever was clearly affecting her mood, so she got tylenol for that. In order to give it to her I had to lay her on the floor and sit on her, prying her mouth open with one hand and squirting with the other while she screamed and twisted. Since she's over 2 now she gets 2 squirts. Lucky us.

She got Benadryl for the faucet nose, but it barely helped so I stopped giving it to her. Doc said to get the cough only Triaminic strips for her this time in case this progresses to her chest, so we picked some of those up.

I elevated the head of her bed, filled the vaporizer and plugged it in, and put her to bed.

Hopefully this time it'll last less than a week.

I just feel so helpless.