How was your NIGHT?

I spoke too soon. Waaaaay too soon. I thought the day from *insert expletive* was over by the time I blogged at 9:30 p.m. If you haven't read my blog entry titled "How was your day," be sure to read that one first to put this in perspective.

So I finished my "blog entry" (read as "rant" or "self pity fest"?) around 9:30 and was very ready to plop into bed and zonk out. I was still feeling really high strung after the day's drama so I laid down to read for a couple minutes. Around 10:15 Josh and I heard Joseph's door open and groaned.

"I think he's just going potty," I said. We went back to our reading. Then the coughing started. He couldn't stop coughing. Then we thought we heard Thomas crying, but the sound seemed too far away.

"Is that Joseph?" Josh asked.

"No, no," I said. That sounds like Thomas. We both groaned.

"There goes our sleep time," said Josh.

Then we heard something more. "Is Joseph throwing UP?" I asked. Josh didn't think so, but after listening for a couple more seconds, I insisted that Thomas was still asleep but Joseph was upstairs coughing up a storm and vomiting. Josh rushed out of the room and the next thing I heard, as I was climbing out of bed, was Josh saying, "Aaaauuuuugggh! Do it in the toilet. Don't just stand there on the stairs!" Yes, Joseph was vomiting onto the stairway.

Now is a good time to remind you that we got our carpets cleaned yesterday and were still wet. Thank you.

I urged Joseph down to the bathroom and made him kneel down over the toilet. Then things got serious quickly. Joseph was trying to cry and cry but hardly a sound was coming out of him. It sounded like he was choking and each breath was a struggle. He was still breathing, though, even though the effort made him silently cry and scream. He would occassionally vomit a little yellow stuff into the toilet.

I panicked, didn't know what to do. I called the doctor's office, trying to remember if the after-hours service was open until 10:00 or 10:30. They'd just closed. I called the answering service, thinking I had to talk to a doctor quick. I didn't know what to do! I exercised excellent self control, might I add, since I have the phone number for our neighbor who is a pediatrician and I resisted calling him! So I finally got connected to a nurse who calmly explained that if he had croup, like I suspected, I'd have to take him into the doctor sooner or later. She said it was just a matter of time, so I might as well head to ER early in the night.

By the time she said this, I had already changed out of my pajamas and told Josh to get Joseph some socks and shoes. I hung up and we rushed Joseph out into the car and over to the ER. Naturally, by the time we finally saw the doctor, Joseph wasn't coughing anymore and seemed to be breathing just fine. I guess that's good, but it's still annoying. The doctor listened to him and said it sounded like a bit of asthma and a bit of croup as well. (Asthma, I learned, causes a wheezing sound when they breathe OUT and the croup has the wheeze when they breathe IN. I never knew.) So he got a breathing treatment of epinephrine. (Me: "Will this have any side effects?" Nurse: "He might get a bit high strung. It's like pure adrenaline.") After the treatment, his breathing sounded much, much better and he actually had a voice again! Yea! (I will admit that I enjoyed the two hours of voicelessness because Joseph usually talks nonstop, and yes, I felt guilty about enjoying it while he was in pain.)

So right around midnight, the difficult day appropriately came to a close. I tucked Joseph into bed around 12:30 a.m. and went to sleep. Now I'm off to go fill his prescription and I'm having a good laugh. There are days that are difficult and then there are days that are just waaay over the top. Yesterday was so over the top that I can enjoy laughing about it now. (And for those of you who asked... Thank you for your concern, but I'm not worried about the lump. I'm really not. I think it's just scar tissue from one of the c-sections but we're making sure. Don't worry on my behalf!)