Monday - March 30th

This was not the best of days. I woke up at one-thirty this morning. I sleep pretty sound, but when Bink makes any noises, I'm up like a light switch has been thrown on. I look at the monitor and can see she's moving around, but she's not saying anything, she up I jump and go to check on her. She's hot, has a barking cough, and she's not able to breathe right. The croup. Considering Bink has been maybe sick three times in three years, this was bad. She could hardly breathe at all. I grabbed her, stripped her clothes off, put Vicks on her chest and sat with her in the bathroom with the tub going full blast with hot water to build some steam up in the hopes of getting her airway open. I told Chuck to call 911 and what does he do? He says how about we wait. Hello! I think I know when something isn't right and she needs to go to the hospital or not. I spend twenty-four seven with her, not him. Of course I yelled at him and told him to call 911 and he finally did. I have to hand it to the rescue squad. They were there at our house in less than ten minutes. It only felt like it took five minutes before they were there. We got some mismatched clothes on Bink and she and I went into the ambulance. They gave her a nebulizer of abuterol (I know I'm spelling it wrong and I don't care). I held it some of the time, but she held it a lot and did so when they unloaded her at the hospital. She didn't cry because I told her we were on an adventure ride and that if she did cry, she won't be able to breathe. She even took the time to comment on the paramedic vehicle following us with their lights on. I was a bit worried when I read the monitor on the ambulance. Her oxygen levels looked low. The paramedic thought the same thing and switched the clip from Bink's finger to her big toe and the level went up to the relief of us both. Her temperature had gone down too, so that was good. Once at the hospital they gave her another breathing treatment and some prednizone (sp) steroid. We were there for about an hour and by the time we left, she was able to breathe without struggling. She even went over to the doctor and nurses on call and thanked them for the Dora stickers they gave her. Got to love my little girl. :) I thought she would fall asleep on the car ride home (Chuck had followed us to the hospital in his car), but she was wide awake. As soon as we got home, Chuck went up to bed and I stayed downstairs on the sofa with Bink. She wanted to sleep down there and I wasn't about to argue with her after her having gone through all she did this night. Needless to say I got no sleep this night. Bink finally fell asleep around four-thirty. The poor thing.

On a side note, another little girl was there for the exact same thing as Bink. The nurse said her mom had her playing outside all day and she had been fine when she went to bed, but had woken up the same as Bink. Not being able to breathe. The nurse said sometimes the change in weather like we had today would trigger something like this. Oy. I sure hope this doesn't happen again. It was too scary having Bink struggling to breathe. :(