Thursday/Friday this past week was a busy day. I spent a total of 7 hours at the Martin Army Community Hospital in a 24 hour period.
During the day Thursday, I had noticed that Myck seemed to be a bit congested. Nothing major. I was the only one who thought he even sounded congested. We didn't think anything of it. Then bedtime hit. Myck had started coughing, a very croupy cough that sounded like a seal barking. Unfortunately, the cough kept getting worse. At several points, he coughed until he gagged and we had a bowl ready in case he threw up. Then just before 11:00 PM, he had a coughing fit and it sounded like he was having trouble breathing.
Tina and I very quickly got shoes on, grabbed Myck, and went out to the van to take him to the ER. The van door was open, I had moved Lynk's car seat so Tina could sit in the back and hold Myck while I drove. As she went to get into the van (while holding Myck), he started to vomit profusely all over the driveway. It was a mess. Tyson had come outside, and grabbed us a bowl in time for the second round of vomit. We wiped Myck's face off, quickly loaded into the van, and went to the ER.
He was diagnosed with a bad case of croup, and they gave him a steroid to help with the inflammation in his bronchial tubes. Turns out with croup, it's just a lot of inflammation. And since little kids have such tiny airways, a little bit of inflammation can cause a lot of issues. But the steroid did the trick. But we didn't get out of the ER until 2:00 AM.
Lynk's appointment to be tested for allergies was at 8:00 AM. Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep Thursday night. I was up at 6:30, and Lynk and I left the house at 7:30, got to the hospital about ten til 8:00. We didn't have to wait super long, though, which was good.
We saw a Dr. Lundberg, who gave Lynk a quick check over, and said that his nasal passages did look really inflamed. He said that depending on what Lynk tested positive to, he would probably start Lynk on allergy injections. He would have put Lynk on Flonase, but we've tried that stuff before, and it gave Lynk really bad nosebleeds. So he can't be on it because of that not-so-fun side effect.
The nurse is the one who did the allergy test. It's really simple. They used a marker to draw a plus sign on the inside of Lynk's right arm just above the elbow, and a minus sign on the left arm. Then, she wrote the numbers 1-44 up and down the inside of Lynk's forearms. Then she proceeded to use little plastic sticks with a rough bottom to test Lynk for allergies.
The sticks were covered in a bit of whatever they were testing, whether it be ragweed, cottonwood, dander, etc. She used the stick to scratch Lynk's skin just a smidge, then we had to wait to see whether he tested positive to anything. We would know if the was positive because it would have swelled up and looked itchy. That's where the plus and minus sign come in. The plus sign was the control - it had something on it that would cause a reaction, while the negative one was just a plain stick with nothing on it. The positive one certainly did swell and itch. But that was the only one that did. Lynk didn't test positive to any allergens.
Because Lynk didn't test positive, his snorting isn't caused by allergies. So the allergist is going to put in a referral for Lynk to be seen by an ENT. The allergist said it may be something like Lynk's adenoids are too large and aren't allowing for proper mucous draining. Or it could just be that Lynk's nasal passages are just irritated by environmental factors. We don't know. But eventually We'll have an appointment with an ENT to see what they say about Lynk's snorting.
After Lynk's appointment, I took him to school. I didn't take Myck to speech, he still wasn't feeling all too well after his big adventure at the ER. But at 3:00, I took him back to the hospital to see his pediatrician for an ER follow up visit, and to put in paperwork to be reimbursed for fuel for our trip to Alpharetta. (If someone has a doctors appointment over 100 miles away, the hospital will reimburse us for travel). Myck was still kind of congested and coughy, so she went ahead and prescribed a steroid for him so that I could give it to him before bed so he wouldn't have such a bad croupy flare-up again. But between the doctor visit and waiting at the pharmacy, I didn't leave the hospital until nearly 5:30.
Friday was an extremely long day, and I spent way too much time at the hospital. But at least the kids are doing okay. Kind of. On Saturday, Lynk slept on his neck funny and got a pinched nerve. It's now Monday, and it's still kinked. So I'm going to call his pediatrician in the morning to see if I can't get him in to be checked out. Poor kid can't hold his head up straight without his neck hurting. I'll be ready for my boys to both be feeling 100% like their normal selves.
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