Croup?

Last night around 10:30 Charlie woke himself up with a crazy seal-sounding cough. His breathing was really labored and every breath sounded like his last (terrible thing to say but it's the best way to describe it). Not knowing what else to do I brought him into our bed, sent Matt to the guest room, and made Charlie sleep with me so I could keep an eye on him. I think I maybe got 2 hours of sleep last night, I spent the rest of the night staring at him.

So this morning I took him down to the Urgent Care Center and their diagnosis was he either has croup or he swallowed a toy. Apparently based on his breathing patterns either option was equally viable.

For those of you who don't know croup is an infection of the larger breathing tubes of the lungs and windpipe. It's caused by the same virus that produces laryngitis in adults. The swelling that occurs in the trachea produces narrowing of the air passages and thus the harsh, dry, bark-like cough.

I did my best to convince the doctor we don't let Charlie swallow his toys so we could get the shot of cortisone (which would cure him assuming he had croup). When we left the doctor told us to come back in 24 hours if he's not showing significant signs of improvement and they'd do some chest x-rays and look for a toy in his chest.

Thankfully throughout the day today he's been acting more and more like his old self so I think the croup is clearing up and we won't have to go shopping to replace any lost toys.