Croup and Teeth Grinding

Last Sunday night Evan started his croup cough. I knew by the sound of it that it was probably going to go into croup so I scheduled an appt. with the pedi on Mon. We went in and she agreed that whatever we wanted to call it - croup/reactive airway disease/asthma that it had started. She wanted him to do a breathing treatment in the office. We have done these many times in the past but not in the office in a long time. Evan struggles with reflux for many different reasons - something covering his nose and/or mouth, a smell, a texture, crying, whatever. When we do breathing treatments at home he asks for lots of breaks for a little sip of water. He can barely stand it but with the breaks we make it through. So... we are at the office and Evan starts panicking... he needs a drink - the nurse encourages him to continue and he starts to cry and starts choking - he needs a drink - the Dr. comes in and asks him to try to finish so she can see if its helping (I love his pedi) they were really trying to calm him down to no avail. He said I need a drink - none of you understand and then... the vomiting began. I don't know if I have ever seen Evan vomit that much and I've seen him do it a lot. Once it stopped we were moved to another room (thank God - Evan had boiled egg whites and cheese for lunch) and the Dr. said no more breathing treatments for Evan - we move to inhalers. He is doing much better with this and has in the past week become a pro at it. We started a steroid and 2 inhalers that day. We were told to come back Fri. for a recheck. This past Fri. we went in and although his breathing was better his allergies/sinuses seemed worse and making him still sound really junky. We were already on an allergy med and nasal spray. They checked his white blood cell count and it was high so we started an antibiotic. Evan again begged for no liquid meds so he was so happy with his new pills and inhalers! We are trying very agressively to get this all in order before Wed. which is the day for Evan's cath. We are going back today for another check to see if the antibiotic has helped him get back on track. He is still coughing but seems better to me.

Evan seems to be doing well. He talks about the cath here and there and asks how many more days. He has always been a teeth grinder in his sleep when things like this are bothering him. He has been grinding away every night since his last cardio appt. It is the strangest noise I have ever heard. So between coughing and grinding of teeth, Evan or I have not gotten much sleep. Say a prayer his white blood cell count is back to normal today.

See final picture for the American Heart Associations poster this year. I think it turned out just great!