Croup
So we spent a nice afternoon and evening with my folks and siblings and cousins. Peter took Caroline and Ariel back to the hotel and I stayed with my folks catching up on news and family stuff. I slept over at my folks house.
This morning I get a call from Peter that Caroline is running a fever and coughing like a barking seal. I get back to the hotel as fast as I can and we take Caroline to Eggleston Children’s Hospital Emergency room. She is not her cheerful self. She sits in her father’s lap and looks listlessly around the room. All she wants it to be held by one of her parents.
We are so grateful to everyone we encountered at Eggleston. Most emergency rooms seem more interested in how you are going to pay rather than what is wrong. In this case they wanted to know her name and what was wrong with her. They got us into an examining room with a doctor in under 20 minutes. We were apparently the third case of croup that they had seen that morning. They gave us instructions as to how to make this easier for Caroline. Time is really the only cure.
Fortunately Caroline and Genevieve had only seen each other a short time. Caroline wasn’t coughing at the time. So there is a slight risk that Caroline passed it onto Genevieve but her parents are prepared to deal with it. Unfortunately, this means that the cousins can’t celebrate Christmas morning together. Peter has been the main caregiver today so I could go visit with some friends and family. Ariel has been a big help with all this too.
So we had our Christmas Eve ceremony that we have been doing since I can remember. I can remember going to my maternal grandmother’s on Christmas Eve and passing the oplatka around the family from generation to generation. We would eat sauerkraut soup and some sort of fish dish. Then we would get first crack at the Christmas cookies. We would go to midnight mass at the church up on the hill one town over. Then the kids would go to bed with visions of sugarplums and presents dancing in our heads. Now we gather at my parent’s table and perform the same ceremony as we did on the farm. We munch on Christmas cookies and catch up on news of friends and family. We go to mass on Christmas Eve as a family and then put the children to bed with the promise of presents on the way.
Merry Christmas Everyone.
This morning I get a call from Peter that Caroline is running a fever and coughing like a barking seal. I get back to the hotel as fast as I can and we take Caroline to Eggleston Children’s Hospital Emergency room. She is not her cheerful self. She sits in her father’s lap and looks listlessly around the room. All she wants it to be held by one of her parents.
We are so grateful to everyone we encountered at Eggleston. Most emergency rooms seem more interested in how you are going to pay rather than what is wrong. In this case they wanted to know her name and what was wrong with her. They got us into an examining room with a doctor in under 20 minutes. We were apparently the third case of croup that they had seen that morning. They gave us instructions as to how to make this easier for Caroline. Time is really the only cure.
Fortunately Caroline and Genevieve had only seen each other a short time. Caroline wasn’t coughing at the time. So there is a slight risk that Caroline passed it onto Genevieve but her parents are prepared to deal with it. Unfortunately, this means that the cousins can’t celebrate Christmas morning together. Peter has been the main caregiver today so I could go visit with some friends and family. Ariel has been a big help with all this too.
So we had our Christmas Eve ceremony that we have been doing since I can remember. I can remember going to my maternal grandmother’s on Christmas Eve and passing the oplatka around the family from generation to generation. We would eat sauerkraut soup and some sort of fish dish. Then we would get first crack at the Christmas cookies. We would go to midnight mass at the church up on the hill one town over. Then the kids would go to bed with visions of sugarplums and presents dancing in our heads. Now we gather at my parent’s table and perform the same ceremony as we did on the farm. We munch on Christmas cookies and catch up on news of friends and family. We go to mass on Christmas Eve as a family and then put the children to bed with the promise of presents on the way.
Merry Christmas Everyone.