We stayed overnight with Seth and Heather that night (more on that later). The next morning we woke up (well, still awake) and made it over to Grandma Doreen and Papa Brent's house by the afternoon for our family festivities. Again we all had a blast watching the kiddos open their presents. Nathan was getting a little confused when he opened up his gifts from Seth and Heather that included a pet bed and puppy collar. Funny thing is, they originally got these gifts for his stuffed puppy Falco! Then Auntie Heather went upstairs and brought down the most wonderful gift for Nathan from Seth and Heather, Rob and Erin & their girls and Grandma and Grandpa.... a new puppy! He is undoubtable the cutest little white fluff ball ever and Nathan decided to name him Falco (just like his stuffed puppy which looks nothing like the real Falco). Falco is a schnoodle/maltese mix and is the calmest dog I have ever seen. He is a major lap dog and chooses to spend most of his day either in his pet bed or his kennel. I think he fears the pitter patter of Nathan's crazy feet coming to get him! The dog actually runs for cover when Nathan is around. We are still trying to learn the concept of GENTLE. It's getting better everyday - thankfully!
So, after opening gifts we headed upstairs for a lovely meal prepared by Doreen and only enjoyed about 15 minutes of it before we packed up and headed to the urgent care in Pella. On Tuesday night we started to notice that Nathan was laboring breathing a bit and had a nasty sounding cough. It didn't dawn on me that it might be croup until about 12:30 am when he could hardly breath and was coughing like crazy and sounding like a seal barking. I asked Chad to bundle Nathan up in blankets and take him outside in the cold night air to see if that would help - which did a little. Chad promptly whipped out his handy phone/computer and went to WebMD and read up on Croup. He had every symptom and we knew we weren't going to be able to do much about it at that time so we stayed up with him most of the night b/c he couldn't sleep anyhow. Auntie Heather was a trooper right there alongside us that night helping, praying and doting on Nathan is whatever way he needed. Thank you sweet sister!
Christmas eve morning he took a steamy shower with Chad and that helped a little as well. That evening at Brent and Doreen's he was getting much worse and was having a lot of trouble breathing and would stop for short spots of time if he got worked up. Nurse Doreen and Brent thankfully told Chad we needed to take Nathan to Urgent Care. The only urgent care open was in Pella! We packed up and headed home praying he would be okay. Once there the Dr. said he did have croup and they gave him some oral steroids and a nebulizer treatment which he was not happy about. I thought it was a pretty cool contraption designed like an elephant. We got a picture on Chad's phone. We had to bribe him to keep it on with soy ice cream when we got home. He was so tired and was falling asleep on Chad waiting for the Dr. to come back to release us to go home. Once we got home we got the car unpacked and got our Christmas pj's warmed up and Nathan ate two bowl fulls of soy ice cream. I got his cool mist vaporizer going full-bore in his room and he slept like a champ that night!
He woke up with the cutest frumpled hair in his cute pj's and Cars slippers on Christmas morning. We all woke up refreshed and praising God for keeping Nathan safe and in his tender loving arms.
That night we had my parents over for Christmas and Nathan loved opening his new sleds from Grandma Vicky and Papa Truck. You can't really tell from his expression but he loves his new tool workbench from uncle Jeff! He pounds on that thing everyday and it is totally cool! He was having a blast with his Cars race track and new Hot Wheel cars as well.
Nathan is getting better every day and we are incredible thankful and grateful! Needless to say, Christmas 2008 was certainly memorable!
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1 comment:
Oh my! What an experience. I am so thankful that Nathan is on the mend and that God protected him through all that! I am sure Christmas morning was extra special when he woke up a little more refreshed.
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