About the Road Trip...

As I said in the previous post, we went on a long road trip to Tucson, AZ for my mom's wedding. We decided to drive back through Southern Utah so that I could get my lovely braces adjusted again. So we left on Wed, April 22nd with Mackenzie having a fever for the 2nd day. She slept a lot and just wasn't her normal self for the drive, but her and Collin were both very good. We stayed in Flagstaff the first night and made it to Tucson on Thursday. It was gorgeous weather in Tucson...maybe a little too hot, but a welcome change from the cold! Mackenzie snapped out of her sickness on Friday finally, or was it Saturday??? It's a blur now. The wedding went great and we headed up to Beaver, Utah after the wedding on Saturday. That was a 10 hour drive! The kids did great for the first 5 hours, but then finally had had it! We managed to survive and made it to Beaver a little after midnight. We should have made it there sooner, except we headed 25 miles down the wrong highway headed straight for CA. Oops!

The drive to Tucson, and from Tucson up to Beaver was very interesting. Neither one of us had ever been through that country. There were so many cool places to take pictures, like Mexican Hat, Joshua Tree Forest, the giant cacti, Hoover Dam (loved seeing that) etc but there was no way we could stop because we would never manage to get the kids back in the car, plus there weren't any good places to pull off for pics (well except the dam). We definitely want to go visit AZ again to see the cool stuff.

Sunday morning came in Beaver, we didn't go to church, way too exhausted. By the afternoon, Collin started coughing, and by Sunday night it sounded pretty bad and we were thinking he was headed to the drs in the morning, that is before I got my braces adjusted and we were to drive back to Grand Jct.

Plans changed...Monday morning 6 am, Collin woke up with a barking cough, crying in pain, didn't feel good, wheezing. We felt so bad for him. I kept saying he should go to the ER, but we held off until 9 am to get into the dr....at which point they sent us straight to the ER anyways! His oxygen level was 82% at the drs office, and went to 71% at one point when we got to the ER. We had about 7 nurses and the dr there trying to get the oxygen tubes hooked up to him, give him the mask with epinephrine, plus a steroid shot, and an oxygen monitor hooked to his toe. We felt so bad for the poor little guy. Mackenzie was so scared for him. She kept telling us he wanted the mask off, and she was right! At that point, we weren't really that scared since we didn't understand how severe Collin was. He had croup and strider.

Once he got a little more stable they admitted us and got us a room by 10 am. All day Monday Collin just layed in the bed next to us and slept off and on. He kept getting breathing treatments, wouldn't eat, wouldn't talk or laugh. He just cried when he had the treatments. Monday afternoon I still managed to drive back to Cedar City with Mackenzie and get my braces adjusted. Monday night I stayed with Collin. He woke up at 3 am, so I got him settled and situated and then I ran straight to the bathroom throwing up! I couldn't believe I was sick, but I felt aweful. All day Tuesday I was sooo sick. I slept on one hospital bed while Collin had the other one and poor Tyson tried to manage both kids and me. It was a nightmare! I had the stomach flu (everybody was wondering if I had swine flu) but I managed to drug myself up enough to handle both kids that night since Tyson had to go back to work and Collin was still stuck in the hospital. Tuesday night was quite the adventure. Collin slept in one bed, and Mackenzie and I slept in the other hospital bed. We actually did well.

Wednesday morning came and we hoped we would be released, that was the plan, but Collin had regressed a little and didn't sound as good as we wanted him to. So another shot, a few more breathing treatments, and finally they let us go Wednesday night at 8 pm. I seriously couldn't take it anymore and neither could they! Tyson was able to drive back and get us Friday and we made it back at midnight. I have never felt so glad to be home!

So about the croup, it's an upper airway/respiratory problem, nothing to do with the lungs (thank goodness). The problem is that his airway was so swollen that he had strider which is the desperate wheezing when breathing in and out. It did sound bad, but we had no clue how bad. Found out later after the docs talked to us and reading online that infants lungs can only be strained breathing like that for only so long and then they just shutdown or their airway closes off because it is so swollen. No wonder why all the hospital staff was freaking out on us. Babies get admitted if the oxygen level falls below 90%. They told us Collin was the worst case they had seen all winter and this year...that was until Tuesday morning when a 3 year old got admitted across the hall from us. He was so bad that he was life-flighted a few hours later.

Anyways, it was a good wake-up call. It was so scary and we will never take that chance again in waiting to see the doc. I am so thankful we have our healthy little playful Collin back to normal. Now we await the hospital bill...yikes!

Right after he got admitted. He looked so sick.

Day 2 - a little more active. Mackenzie loved to hang out in his bed.

Day 3 - feeling better and no oxygen needed! Yeah!