Normal childhood illnesses, hurray!

Well, not so much "hurray," but it's not terribly far off. A few weeks ago, it was pneumonia. And now, I think Mallorie has croup. She was making some funny noises last night, but I dismissed them as the return of reflux. Meaning, I was trying to live in denial land about the maybe-reflux, and not listen much or get myself overly stressed about that coming back, because that would be really easy to do. Even though relapses of stuff is truly not the end of the world.

I say, I "think" croup, because Mallorie is a steadfast nose-breather, and if she gets congested, the noise and effort of her ONLY breathing through her nose complicates things a bit. The noise of breathing nasally through stuffy passages might have disguised another noise that that might have been the tip-off, that of breathing through a swollen throat. Since ALL our kids have been prone to croup, if I had heard the high-pitched noise that comes from breathing in when the swelling is particularly bad, I'd probably have had her in the steamy bathroom during the night. Or, if she'd had a cough that sounded more like classic croup. But she didn't.

What she had was noisy wet sounds that I thought were reflux, snoring sounds as she strained to breathe through her stuffy nose, and restlessness. Lots of restlessness and little sleep. Poor baby.

So it took her brother, who currently has croup (about his 3rd morning to be hanging out in the steamy bathroom), to tell me this morning that she probably has croup. And after a couple of breathing treatments and spa time in the steamy bathroom while I took my shower, she's breathing much easier. So she probaby does have it. And that would help to explain the 102.8 fever, the fretting all night, the battle with really low oxygen saturations all night, and the frequent bouts of apnea, which made me think we needed to get another caffeine level, after we just did that about a week ago.

My inner freak-out mommy is calm, for now, because croup is normal ... for us, at least. And usually fairly manageable with home treatments, like a cool mist humidifier. If it's not manageable tonight (in our experience, the 2nd night of croup is the worst), we will head to the ER. Figures, though. If this weren't a weekend, we'd be in the pedi's office begging her to consider a bit of oral steroids to head off the 2nd night struggle.

So the hurray part. Well, a few weeks ago it was a raging diaper rash from trying to add a bit of formula powder to add calories to Mallorie's milk. Then it was pneumonia and a crazy high fever, for which she needed a brief hospital stay. And got a normal IV in her arm. Then diarrhea and continuing diaper rash from antibiotics. And her managing not to get the sickness that landed me in the hospital for 24 hrs of IV fluids last weekend.

And now maybe croup. These are not the sorts of things that send me running to the edge of the cliff screaming that I can't do it, and that I'm surely going to mess her up.

Like when I pull out her new g-button, all by myself, and can't put it back in. Not even after talking sobbing being unable to talk to Dr. H on the phone.

Yeah. I'm sure Cathy is waiting on me to fess up to that one here, but I'm not ready, yet. It might have to be a Monday, so I can say it wasn't me.

I am posting a picture from another day, because Hannah won't let me post any from today. Apparently, Mal's sick day ones are not so good - not by big sister standards.