Luca was hospitalized over the weekend with Croup! Poor little guy! ;o(

Well, well, well... just when we thought that we could use the weekend to finalize our last minute details for our big Europen trip this coming week....Luca came down with croup... It was 2 AM on Saturday morning when Luca woke up crying, with difficulty breathing and a bit of a dry bark like cough... I called the pediatrician on duty and he told me to turn on the hot shower and let him breathe in that steam for a few minutes...and he told us that if this would not help we should then take him to the ER... Well, we did that and he did not get any better so, there we went for a lovely trip to the ER here in Corona...

We got there by approx 3 AM and thankfully there was nobody there, we were called in right away. They examined him and told us that he likely had croup, an upper respiratory inflammation caused by a virus... normally kids 3 mo to 5 years old get these! But where did Luca get it? Most likely at the doctor's office when we went in on Friday morning to get his 12 month shots...See, we go in for something and leave with something else...unbelievable...In the beginning we had actually thought this was some strange reaction to the shots he got on Friday (MMR, Varicella and Pneumococcal).

What an experience to sit inside an ER cubible for 4 hrs... you hear everything, you feel your neighbors' pains, you suffer for your child tremendously... crazy stuff... There was a lady down the hall from us that must have said this phrase about 1 million times repetitively: "My side hurts an awful lot, my side hurts an awful lot, my side hurts an awful lot...."... poor lady, but she drove us insane too ;o)Anyways, after those initial 4 hrs they've decided to admit Luca for at least one more night to keep him under observation given his medical history! ;o(

WHAT, admitting him??? I was NOT ready for that at ALL again... I thought we've had our fair share of hospital life for a GOOD while... but gotta do watcha gotta do, I suppose... So here we were again at a hospital environment... Luca dressed in this little hospital gown AGAIN, with an oxygen saturation light stuck to his toe AGAIN and a long wire attached to it that brought me memories from CHLA...but this time it's all good, part of childhood, I guess.....

Once we got admitted, they put a humidifier next to him, gave him a bronchiodilator thru a nebulizer, a dose of antibiotics and a dose of an anti-inflammatory...they also suspected the beginning of pneumonia thru the x-rays so that's why they gave him antibiotics... Doc told us they are seeing a LOT of croup cases in the last few days here in CA...possibly due to the up and down weather we've had in the last few days! Who knows....

So we spent the night there and were discharged today, Sunday, at 6PM...Approx 40hrs later Luca is doing better but still with a very congested cough...my poor little guy ;o( He came home still on the nebulizer, antibiotics and an anti-inflammaroty...for at least another 5-10 days...We are also concerned because we are supposed to leave for Europe on Thursday... So now we will go back to his ped's office on Tue to see if he gives us the green light or if we'll have to cancel/post-pone everything...We'll have to simply wait and see...

And what about this swine flu now? We are even concerned about that now too... and being stuck on a plane for 14+hrs with people coming from all corners of the world scares me a bit too...

Well, better go get some rest now...

Ciao ciao and hugs & kisses to all,

Heloisa ;o)