A Visit With Our Friends in the ER

Sigh. Another trip to the emergency room last night. I suppose I shouldn't say "another" as if we go there all the time...Soren hasn't visited the ER since we were in Poland in October. So I suppose that he's skated through this cold & flu season quite well. He came down with a minor cold this weekend, the same cold that Peter and I have too. But whenever he gets a cold we watch him pretty carefully for signs of that nasty barking croup cough. This time he hasn't had too much of a cough so I thought we were clear. Yesterday morning his cough had worsened slightly, but still it wasn't bad at all. But things declined slowly during the day. And, as if waiting for the doctor's office to close, his breathing really started to concern me at about 6 pm. He was lively, happy and energetic, but he was doing quite a bit of grunting while he was breathing. Peter called the nurse's line and when she heard about the grunting she said we should head in to the ER.

The nice thing about this visit is that it wasn't in the middle of the night. Somehow I had the idea that we'd waltz in, get seen and then head home in time for his 7:30 normal bedtime. Delusional, obviously. The lady who checked us in was a kindly asmathic who obviously sympathized with Soren's breathing problem. She whisked us right in, in front of the 40 or so other people waiting in various states of agony. But still the process once we were in the ER was very slow...he had three breathing treatments, a nasal swab to check for RSV (negative), a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia (also negative) and various other pokes and prodes. By the time we got home it was nearly 10:30.

They gave us a small inhaler to use in case he has continued breathing problems. But hopefully at this point he's on the mend.