Up All Night, Sleep All Day

That was the title of a rock song I used to listen, back in the day. It had a much different meaning then as it does now, that's for sure!!

So last night I was pretty much UP ALL NIGHT. Here's the story.

Friday I mentioned Nick had that cough. Well it continued ALL day Saturday (yesterday). It was terrible, he was just coughing & coughing. So bedtime comes & it's about 9:00. Of course he is still coughing. We had given him different stuff but obviously nothing was working. Another hour passes. We move him from bed to the couch so he is at least sitting up. It's now 11 pm & the cough is much worse, and I can tell it is hard for him to even breathe. I called the ER to see what we should do. At this point, I was thinking it's a bad cough, there won't be anything they can do, but maybe offer some suggestions. They suggested steam in the room or the mist from a shower or even go outside. So I do the mist purifier & then Nick & I even sat in the garage for a little while. It just got too cold for that so we didn't last all that long. So this continues for while, I try to go to sleep but not happening when all I hear is him coughing. He doesn't go longer than about 3 or 4 minutes without coughing. He is back on the basement couch. Then just before 2:00 am he comes into my room & lays by me, struggling to breath it sounds like & in tears. So I go up to his room with him & decide it's time to head to the Emergency Room. We had been dealing with the constant coughing for at least 5 hours straight & no one was getting any sleep. So it's just after 2:00 am that we get to the hospital. And of course after being there for awhile he doesn't cough. Well, now I know it's because we had just been outside for 15 mins in the van so he was breathing in that cold air which helped. They check him out & then hear him cough & said it's croup. Well it progressed to that. At 9:00, it was just a regular sounding cough, but by midnight I think is when the seal barking started. They listened to his lungs & they sounded PERFECT the doctor said. That was good news. So the first thing they do was a nebulizer treatment type thing but it had some other meds in it to help open his airways. He went from 97% to 100% after that so that was good. Then they decided to give him steriods. He opted for it orally instead of a shot ;-)

He was warned it was nasty stuff & he verified that it was! So that was about 3:00 he got that. I asked him if he'd ever been up until 3:00 AM. He smiled, no.

So they want to continue to monitor him to see if the coughing lets up. It doesn't. She comes back about 3:30 & said something I said, well it's been about 5 mins since he coughed (I thought that was pretty good, at least it seemed like it!) & she said "well actually 7 mins, I've been timing it" They still don't want to release him because they feared he could have real trouble breathing. So they monitored some more. Then about 4:00 they came in and did another neb type thing. He continued to cough, but was sort of falling asleep at this point. The doctor came back about 4:30 & watched him cough & then said they would try some cough syrup w/ codiene in it. He said "he just doesn't stop coughing, does he?" Nope, this is how it's been since at least 9:00 when I started monitoring it more. Then he also asked how far away we were from the hospital. I said 15 mins, which he didn't like. I said my folks live just a block away & I guess we could go there if I could figure out how to get the heat turned on. The doctor looked at me....I said, well they are in AZ for the winter! Oh!

So he said he'd feel more comfortable letting us go if we were closer to the hospital in case he had the loud breathing. Talk about a scare. Only letting you go if you are near enough to get back there in a hurry if you had to! So I said, well let me run over there to get the furnace going (since he still had a couple of things to do with Nick yet). So I head over there about 4:30 & turn the heat on. It was a balmy 45 degrees in the house!!

So I go back & get Nick & they have us set up a follow up appointment for Monday with our doctor. So it's nearing 5:00 am & I'm like, oh, I guess that appointment is tomorrow, huh, it's Sunday already! 5 am & neither Nick nor I have gotten any sleep yet.

So we get back to the house & it's now warmed up to a nice 50 degrees!!! So we go to the bedroom & see there is nothing for blankets in there! Hunt around the house for some blankets & get Nick tucked in. He is STILL coughing.....every 5 minutes. I'm hoping once he can fall asleep it will be better. I get into bed & then about 10 mins later realize that I could of put my van in their garage. It's 5 below zero at this point. So I head back outside & move my van into the garage. Come back to check the heat & it's like 51 in the house now. Whoo hoo!! Warming up. Actually I thought, well maybe this cold will help Nick breathe better.

So we lay in bed & he's still coughing. At about 6:30 I hear the furnace stop running. What the hell?? So I check & it didn't warm up at all in the house, still 50 something. So at 7:00 I called my dad in Arizona to see what I needed to do to get some HEAT in the house. So I fiddled around a bit more with it. Nick was still coughing until about 9:30. I think that is when we both finally fell asleep. I woke up then at 11:00 & it still felt cold in the house. So I check it & it still wasn't working right. I tried again & finally got it working to stay running until it warmed up to 70. I then called Phil at 11 to tell him that Nick was sleeping & we'd just stay there until he woke up or whatever. It was much quieter there than coming home! Nick woke up about 2:00 & was then ready to go home.

At this point he had stopped the constant coughing & I could tell he was MUCH better. So we head home around 3:00, just over 12 hours later from when we left. Very long night.

We have a follow up appointment at 10 Monday with the doctor. We should get a good report, as I haven't heard much of the cough since we've been home. Very good news!

I think it will be an early night for both of us!!