I AM ON NO SLEEP PEOPLE!!!

HAS THIS ENTIRE WORLD GONE MAD???


No - wait - that's just me.

I know, I know - this is where you expect me to play on my heartstrings and share with you my whole sob story about how I hate Tuesdays. Well this Tuesday, I decided to make it more interesting for you. Or rather, ATE has decided to make it more interesting for you.

Let me preface by saying, I got no more than an hour and 1/2 of sleep last night. And the fun began somewhere after the magical 1 AM hour when oddities tend to happen in my home as of late. So some or all of this post may not make much sense, because, I am not sure if you are aware, but lack of sleep may have a negative effect on my writing skills.

Yesterday ended pretty much as uneventful as could be. Ro was sick and home from school yesterday and a total crank. She had 100.2 fever by bedtime, so I gave her the good ol' Tylenol and she went off to sleep, mild cough, snot nose and all. Ate was off to sleep an hour later or so. He was his normal sweet, trouble making self all day. And nothing, I repeat, NOTHING was out of the ordinary for him.

I of course did not retire for the night until 12 AM, because let's face it, I am a moron. However, an hour later, the strangest combination of noises woke me up.

I heard a sink running, and Hun was not in his bed, so I assumed he was the "sink runner" in question.

I heard a dog barking so loudly, I thought it was locked outside somewhere nearby freezing to death.

And I heard a child crying.

So I decided to focus on the crying child and locate it's origin. Only, when I exited my room I realized the child was certainly crying because a dog somehow entered their room and was freaking the kid out with the barking. And then it occurred to me, in my sleepy stupor, that there was no dog, but there was a child crying AND barking. I immediately thought it was Ro, due to her current cough and sickly condition, so I turned my attention to her door. But quickly I came to recognize that the barking, crying child was actually Ate. And then I knew right away what was going on.

HE CAN'T BREATHE!!!

The nurse in me knew enough to recognize this very distinctive barking sound as Croup - an awful viral cough that can lead a child gasping for air.

I grabbed him out of his crib, ran downstairs and opened the front door of the house and just stood there, hoping the cold air would allow him to open his airway.

While this is one advised way of treating Croup symptoms, I do not think it is advisable to stand at your front door wearing not much but a t-shirt. And Ate was not liking the cold weather, thus causing him to cry more and exacerbate his need to gasp for air as he barked.

So I shut the front door and retreated to a window instead, that I opened near my now blanket wrapped two year old and yelled, "HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN".

Hun came down quickly, and I am sure whatever I said to him was hardly recognizable as resembling the English language. But I handed Ate off and told him to hold him by the window so I could call the Doctor. But I totally blanked and could not remember the number. I learned this when I woke some poor guy up at 1 in the morning. (I don't feel so bad if it was the sucka' who woke me up a few days ago.) And I could not find the number anywhere. And then I remembered the advice I give to everyone else who has a small child in crisis in middle of the night....

Don't call the Doctor, just get in the car and go to the ER.

Mom-in-law was called and came (felt like an eternity). And we were off.

We get to the hospital, and Murphy's Law will have it, that when I need to come to the ER, they have been totally slammed and it takes for freakin' ever.

Ate was so great though. He was not gasping for air anymore, due to the cold air he sucked up in the car on the way over. And he was being very compliant. However, he was now sneezing a bark and his nose began to run.

We were not in our shower curtained room for more than ten minutes when an eager, fresh faced, teenager Med. student (?) came in for preliminary checking. This short haired, I can only guess because there was no introduction, Med student looked so much like a teenager, I could not tell if it was a he or a she. So I did what anyone in my situation would do and I referred to him/her as "Doogie".

I hate Med students. When I am a patient, I make a point of announcing that I will not be receiving any Medical students. But I figured, I was there to oversee this wannabe Doctor and the Attending would be in eventually, so I did not dismiss Doogie Howser so quickly.

Doogie did not even know how to use a pulse oximeter. I could do that in my sleep Doogie. Turn on monitor in room that conveniently has a pulse oximeter cable already attached to it. Place the little clippy part with the red light over two year old's finger, and ascertain that the numbers are well above 95. Now why don't you continue on your way to the room 3 shower curtains away and make "Dementia" woman your guinea pig. Because frankly, even if she does not want you there, she will certainly have forgotten that you came five minutes later.

Oh, and I like how when I mentioned that we put Ate by the window to give him some cold air, your response was, "Yeah, cold air can EXACERBATE this kind of situation".

GO DO YOUR HOMEWORK, DOOGIE!!!

We now had to wait 3 more hours until the Attending would show up. And while Ate was extremely awake and playful, Mom and Pop were struggling to keep their eyes open. Even though my playful son could be completely mistaken for a well trained SEAL at this point, due to the bark and the clapping every time the sink would magically turn on (as Hun's foot hit the pedal), he was still a bit sick and we had to wait for the Attending to give us some sort of reprieve.

She showed up, all preggers and sweet. And Ate was totally flirting with her. In fact, she asked him, as she had her stethoscope on his chest,

"Are you making eyes at me"?

At which point my "playa" for a son deliberately began to bat his eyelashes at her.

He was pretty cute and charming for a sickie.

So her diagnosis - CROUP. Shocking!!!

She ordered for him a dose of oral steroids to lambaste the inflammation in his airway. We left happily. We returned home by 5:30 at which point Hun went to prepare a humidifier for Ate's room and I gave Ate a doughnut for supper , breakfast , snack and he returned to bed, where he currently is as I write this.

But no sleep for Mommy. I had to get So ready at 7 am for her carpool, which was, you guessed it, me. And of course that did not go off without a hitch. But I will save that story for tomorrow. And I still can not go to sleep because my other sickie, Ro is home and hangin', crabbily (is that a word) with her Mommy.

I always like to look at the bright side. Because Ro and Ate are home today, at least I do not have 3 out of the 4 trips to their school that I usually have. So I will be here - all day, trying to catch some Zzzzzzz on my couch as Ro continues to drive me mad.

But better to be driven mad at home than to madly drive to the hospital.

Okay, that was cheesy, but remember I am on NO sleep.