Yesterday was a nightmare

I hated yesterday. I don’t want another day like yesterday to ever happen again. I want to forget that yesterday even happened.

Zahkya woke up with croup again as I wrote about yesterday. I tried to make an appointment with her primary care doctor and she just didn’t have any openings like I expected. I’m so frustrated with that doctors office. They never have appointments when I need them. They have appointments booked out for a week or two, which isn’t helpful at all.

So we went to the emergency room, again. When we first got there she was still having her croup cough (she’s never had it in the daytime before) and she started complaining that her ear drum hurt. Fast forward 20 minutes and she was crying that her eardrum hurt so much. Fast forward 20 more minutes and she was screaming in the waiting room because she was in so much pain. Help me help me she screamed. As a Mom, I felt totally and completely helpless. They took us back to a room finally and she screamed and cried and withered around on the bed, screaming and begging for help for another 40ish minutes before anyone came in to see us. They did determine that she had a severe ear infection in her right ear and she was starting an infection in her left ear. She was coughing her barking cough the entire time we were there. Because she was so inconsolable for so long they finally decided to give her a shot of morphine. After about 15 minutes she was fast asleep in my arms but she would wake up every now and then still complaining about her eardrum hurting.

They reviewed her history and saw that she was just in 16 days ago for croup and they had given her an IV steroid that she could take orally. They saw that we had to go in twice to get that steroid so they asked me if I wanted to try giving her the steroid via IV. I said yes. Whatever it took to get her feeling better and out of pain. They also decided to give her IV antibiotics as well to start fighting the ear infection. Zahkya is not good with needles so she screamed bloody murder getting poked.

After about 2-3 hours she was finally calm enough and had all the medicine in her so they decided to send us home. They had to wheel her out because she wasn’t standing up very well due to the morphine.

I drove her home and carried her inside and got her all settled with pillows and blankets on the couch. That’s where she remained until about 8 pm when I walked her to bed. She slept until around midnight when she woke up wanting to watch her pad. I let her watch it for an hour and then she went back to sleep until 5 am. She is happy and in good spirits today, thank goodness, I’m just scared for when that steroid wears off. Nana picked up her amoxicillin and they had to give it to her in capsule form because that’s all they had since there is a giant shortage nationwide.

I was so broken hearing my baby scream and cry and bed and yell for help. That has got to be the worst. I hated that part most of all. I just wanted to take all her pain away from her.

Today is my appointment with my dietitian. I’m going to leave really early because it’s snowing outside and pretty slick so I need to give myself enough time to drive to Fort Collins. I hate driving there under normal circumstances, let alone in a blizzard. Wish me luck!