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February 12, 2004
Hi Everyone!
Last week we had quite a scare with Josh! Unfortunately it resulted in yet another trip to the Emergency room. I'll start from the beginning.
Last week I took Wednesday-Friday off of work with the plans of potty training Josh. A couple of my friends had told me I was crazy thinking I could potty train him in 5 days, but I thought it was worth a try. While Josh does not consistently go on the potty he will go if I sit him on the potty seat and is usually dry when he wakes up in the morning. My boss gave me a book, called "Potty Training in Less Than a Day". She used this method on both of her kids and said it worked for her, so I read the book. I didn't agree with all the techniques, but thought I could use what I learned and modify the rest to meet our needs. The days approaching Wednesday, Josh and I talked a lot about him being a big boy and how diapers are for babies. Josh agreed that he was a big boy and wanted to give his diapers to the "mail carrier". I thought that was pretty funny, especially considering I always call HER the mailman.
Wednesday morning arrived and we were ready for big boy under pants. I had 7 pairs of underwear (which I thought would be plenty LOL!). Josh was happy to be wearing his Bob the Builder briefs, but was not at all interested in sitting on the potty. He was unusually fussy and getting stir crazy staying home. I didn't really want to leave the house because I wanted to be close to the toilet in case we had to run for it. By 11:30 am, we had gone through every pair of under pants that he had and I had to do a load of laundry so we could continue with the training. By that time, Josh had 7 accidents! Normally, I don't even think he would go 7 times by 11:30, but the book I read said that I should give him lots of fluids so that he would have more opportunities to go potty and more opportunities to learn quickly. At this point I think we were both a little grouchy. We had only had 1 successful pee pee on the potty and the rest were in his pants. It seemed like Josh was intentionally going in his pants. I would sit him on the potty and he would tell me he didn't have to go. I would tell him that if he didn't have to go that was okay, but we needed to practice. He would cry and I felt like I shouldn't force him to sit on the potty. I let him up and literally 2 minutes later he wet his pants! We ate lunch at home and Josh refused to take a nap. He did lay down for a while, but never slept. Naps have been a struggle for us since he was born, so this wasn't a big surprise considering his mood. He asked several times through out the day if he could go to the park, so finally I said yes, we could go to the park if he would go pee pee on the potty before we left. He walked right over to the potty and did his thing. Now I know he has control because bribery works! So, off to the park we went. I took him in his stroller because it is just down the street. As we strolled to the park I told Josh that I had only brought one change of clothes, so if he had to go potty he would need to tell me otherwise we would have to go home. When we got to the park, I went directly to the bathroom. I asked Josh if he had to go and he said no. This made sense to me because he had just gone 10 minutes before, at home. I actually had to go myself so I did, then I sat Josh on the toilet and held him so he felt secure. He didn't want to go, so I dressed him and went to wash our hands. Before my hands were even dry, Josh had wet his pants. I cleaned him up and changed him and we were off for home. Josh was very upset because we had basically walked down to the park, used the bathroom and left. He didn't get to play at all. By now I was ready to scrap the potty training effort all together! Clearly neither of us was ready for it (LOL!)
On the way home, Josh fell asleep in his stroller. It was about 4:00 pm by now and I just let him sleep. I figured he needed it, having missed his nap, and I was hoping he would awaken in better spirits. When we got home I put a towel down on the couch in case of another accident and lay him down for a short nap. Here comes the scary part....
Josh woke up about 15 minutes later gasping for air and making a seal like cough. While the cough didn't sound good, it didn't worry me. Him not breathing well worried me a lot. I held him and spoke as calmly as I could. I asked Josh if he could breath and he shook his head "no". Josh has never been diagnosed with asthma, but I was sure he was having an asthma attack. We have a nebulizer at home, so I immediately thought of giving him a breathing treatment. I called my husband at work because he is more familiar with the machine and I needed him to remind me how to put it together. As it turns out we didn't have any Albuterol, which is the medication needed for the breathing treatment, so we were off to the ER. Josh's breathing sounded worse and I was very worried that he wasn't getting enough oxygen. I called 911 emergency from my cell phone and drove towards our local fire department thinking a paramedic may be available. 911 had me on hold and, from the car, it looked like the fire department was out on a call. I didn't want to leave Josh in the car to go check it out for sure so I sped to the Emergency room. By now it was dark outside, so I had the interior light on in my car. I wanted to see if Josh still had color in his face. I was thinking that if he started turning blue I would try the next fire department between my house and the hospital. Meanwhile 911 still had me on hold! At that point Josh vomited. I finally hung up with 911 after waiting over 4 minutes, because although Josh was still gasping for air and wheezing it seemed to be getting a little better since he threw up. We arrived at ER and I ran in. The person at the front desk asked our last name, and then said, "Oh, is this Joshua?" I thought, oh my gosh does she remember us from one of our other visits? As it turns out she didn't. She recognized the name because my husband had called 3 times to see if we had arrived safely.
Josh was immediately given a shot of prednesolone (a steriod) which opened up his breathing passages. He could breath again! I finally breathed a sigh of relief. We made it and Josh was going to be fine. They started Josh on a 45 minute breathing treatment and gave him some Tylenol for his fever (102.6). As it turns out Josh had croup. I have never experienced a case of croup first hand, but always thought it was just a severe seal like cough and had no idea that it could come on so suddenly. The doctor advised me that it can come on very much like an asthma attack. The doctor wanted to admit Josh and watch him over night, but the hospital where we were did not have a pediatric care unit. We would have had to drive him to another hospital in another city and I wasn't quite ready for that. Instead, they did a chest x-ray and monitored him in the ER for 5 hours. When he was satisfied that Josh would not have a relapse, he let us go home.
Just for a little comic relief, in all the craziness, I never put a diaper on Josh so he was still wearing his big boy underpants. Josh was sitting on my lap while he was getting his breathing treatment and suddenly I felt a warm release all over me. Josh had wet his pants, but not just a little bit, a lot! Because he was sitting right on my lap, it clearly looked like I had wet my pants when I stood up. Not just in the front, but it had soaked through to the back. We had a change of clothes and a diaper for Josh, but I had nothing to change into and I wasn't leaving my boy to go get something. I can only imagine what the other patients were thinking as I walked through the ER with wet pants that smelled like urine (LOL!)
This all happened Wednesday and by Saturday, Josh still had a fever and had not eaten in 3 days, so back to the doctor we went. At that time we were told that Josh had bronchitis on top of everything else! The put him on a stronger antibiotic and put him back on the steroids along with an albuterol cough syrup.
The good news is that Josh is fine. He is back at school today and hasn't coughed more than a couple of times the past two days. I took him in for a follow up appointment on Tuesday and the doctor said he is doing 100% better. What a relief! This whole experience has taught me a lot about croup. I hope Josh never gets it again, but I know what to look for now. It has also taught me that a Mother with a sick child can get to the hospital from my house in 10 minutes even in rush hour traffic!
Needless to say we have put off potty training for a while. I don't want Josh to associate it with being sick. I am thinking I will continue encouraging him to go on his own, but we won't go cold turkey again for a couple of months.
After that story everything else seems unimportant, but we are still TTC. Today is day 22. I am almost looking forward to AF this cycle because if and when she comes I will have my HSG and see if there is any blockage.
I think this is my longest entry ever, but that is all for this week. Thanks for reading!
Janet and Josh
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