The Holmes Family

You read that right; Connor got to take his first trip (and I hope his only trip) in an ambulance last night! What a night/day it has been. We woke up last night at 2am to Connor coughing and crying. When we went in his room we could see that he was struggling to breath and sounded like he was choking and wheezing. John turned him over and was patting his back while I quickly dialed the doctor to find out what we should do. The nurse on call had me put the phone up to Connor and told me that we should take him straight into the bathroom with the shower on hot to create steam while we dial 911 because he was going to need immediate breathing treatment. I dialed 911 and there was someone at the front door within 2 minutes! It was a police officer followed quickly by 2 paramedics within a minute. They looked over Connor and had me take him in the ambulance while the paramedic administered a vapor breathing treatment to help him breath. He was crying, so at least he was still breathing, but it was pretty scary.

John followed us to OSF and we were admitted to the emergency room right away. In the emergency room Connor was coughing very deeply, wheezing and crying. He had a chest x-ray and a steroid treatment for Croup. The doctor's have diagnosed him with croup: "an inflammation of the larynx (voice box) often caused by a viral infection during a cold or viral upper respiratory infection." We were taken from the emergency room to the pediatric floor around 5am. He received another breathing treatment this morning and it seems to be helping because he is sleeping right now with no noises. The doctors said that it will probably last a few more days with the flair ups being mostly at night time. John was able to run home this morning and get a few things (including the computer so I could blog and upload photos with this super-fast Internet while Connor is sleeping.)

Connor in his hospital gown after the breathing treatment