Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Life with Levi part 3

Man, I did not want to blog today. Okay, yes I did. Right now I feel like I "deserve" to just sit around and watch shows on my computer, vege (I don't know how to spell this one) out, and just wait for my husband to come home. Ben's working late tonight because he has an install for his job. It doesn't happen that often and this time makes me grateful that he doesn't have a job that normally goes this late. I definitely missed him when it was time to put Levi down, I think it's just the fact that I have to lift a 30 pound kid into his crib while 28 weeks prego, that's the hard part.

If you saw my FB post you know that Levi has croup. Not cool. At all. Ben had croup a couple of times as a kid and had pneumonia a lot. His mom said one year he had it six times. Turns out that Ben had really bad allergies. He was allergic to everything the allergist tested him for. So if you have a kid who is prone to these kinds of things I would recommend you get them checked out for allergies. I think we will take Levi in to get him tested for allergies as soon as we can.

Maybe the scariest part of croup is just the fact that the child is having trouble breathing. Their throat closes up and they tend to kind of panic trying to catch their breath. Yesterday that happened a few times, so we got in the shower and steamed him up good. Then everyone suggested taking him out into the cold. That helped at 4:30 this morning. Levi woke up crying and struggling to breathe so I wrapped his blanket around him and ran him to the front porch. Thankfully it was chilly and raining after being in his warm, humid room. (We only have a heat humidifier, we're looking at investing in a cooler one). Probably the biggest blessing/surprise/Godsend of the night was when a friend messaged me on FB asking if she could bring over some essential oils that are supposed to help with croup.  I was thinking "I will take whatever I can get" I didn't know how they would help or if they would. I have been slathering him with Vicks Baby Rub almost every night both on his feet and chest. Levi has gotten so that he lifts up his shirt so I can put it on. My friend came in and Levi was crying and coughing. She showed me which ones to put on him and how to mix it with vegetable oil and within minutes he was just sitting there and looking at her. Poor little guy and his big brown eyes, he must have been so tired. He had only slept for about an hour that day when his naps are usually 2-3 hours.

That night he slept most of the night. He did have some coughing spells about every hour or so, but no hysterical crying, just coughing and then going back to sleep. He did have the one episode at 4:30 but then didn't wake up again until 7:30 when we woke him up to leave for the Dr's.  I ran in for every cough so, needless to say, I didn't sleep much.

This afternoon I laid down when he did. Ben had come home for lunch and let me shower.  Then I put Levi down around 12:30, he maybe fell asleep around one. Well, around 2 he started coughing really bad. I broke a cardinal rule for naptimes (you don't go in their room or else they will see you and want to get up) and ran in. I scooped him up and brought him outside once again. Praise the Lord he stopped coughing. They say it is the shock of the cold air that opens the passage ways. I thought, "Great, now it's going to be another long afternoon, now that I have really woken him up with this cold air." He had this glassy, far off look in his eyes. He wanted to push the button for the doorbell. Sigh. Okay. Then we went inside to his room. He was asking for "food, food" and we sat down with our oils once again. I put them on him, the lavender, the RC, the Peace and Calm and he slowly drifted off to sleep in my arms. I couldn't believe it. That's when you know you child is sick, when they fall asleep in your arms and you don't normally do that.

Levi is sleeping right now. Maybe it was the sterroid inhaler, maybe it is the oils, or the medicine we got from the Dr, but things are starting to look a LOT better.

I think I might actually get to sleep tonight.

Oh yes, and if you want to know where to get the oils you can go to
http://youngliving.com/essential-and-massage-oils 

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