Battling Croup! Part Two- It's not croup!

Look at my little sicky!

Wednesday, 2:30AM
Burkley hasn't nursed since 9:00 last night. I woke up to pump for about five minutes. The sounds of the pump brought me back to the NICU days...a place I'd rather not return, emotionally.
Maybe he's not sick, maybe he's just starting to sleep through the night! ha. ha.

Wednesday, 3:30AM
Burkley woke with a fever of 100.0. I gave him a half dose of Tylenol and took him outside to breathe the cool night air. Coughing fits ensued.
Brought him in and gave him 10mL of breastmilk via syringe.
He coughed lots and threw some of it up.
Sucked oodles of nasty snot out of his nose to help him breathe better.
Changed poopy diaper (this kid isn't eating/drinking much, but he's still having wet and dirty diapers, so no concern there.)
Rocked a sleepy, weak baby to sleep.
He has red, puffy eyes, and red cheeks from the fever.
Zonked out by 4:00.

Wednesday, 6:30AM
Burkley woke up. Nursed for a great feeding.
A little coughy, watery eyes, snotty nose, moaning.
Fever: 101.3

Wednesday, 8:05AM
Another good feeding.
Fever 101.6
Steamy bath with eucalyptus oil.

Since the fever wasn't going down, I called the doc to see if we should head to the ER (since the crazy/mean nurse on Monday had told me that if he got a fever, we needed to go to the ER- lest he die since I didn't vaccinate him-). They said no, come on in and they'd check him out. We saw a nurse practioner since our pediatrician wasn't available till much later in the day.

She checked his lungs. Clear.
Checked his ears. He did not like that!
Checked his throat- super red and swollen.
She heard him cough several times, as he was happy to demonstrate how sick he was. :)
She said the cough was not croupy, it may have been a few days ago, who knows, but this was more like a gagging of mucous more than anything. She prescribed him steroids for the inflammation in his throat and ordered a strep test.
I HATE STREP TESTS so I was nervous for my little guy.
But, he was a trooper and the nurse was in and out with the little swabbies and within minutes we got a negative result. Hooray! No strep = no antibiotics.

So, it was determined that it's just a virus-- a super bad one--I guess one that is sort of disguising itself as strep, judging by the wince of pain I see on his face every time he swallows or coughs. Anyway, he was prescribed some steroids to help with the inflammation of his airways and get him breathing better.

Here's hoping he's better soon- we are supposed to be going to Chicago this weekend for my sister's birthday!

Red eyes and moaning. :(