"Love follows knowledge."
"Beauty above all beauty!"
– St. Catherine of Siena

Showing posts sorted by relevance for query croup. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query croup. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, January 29, 2018

Matthew Monday: My Talkative Boy

Last week Matthew had the croup which caused him to miss two days of school.  This is the second time he’s gotten it.  I posted on it some three years ago, here.  I’m not familiar with the croup, and this is what Wikipedia says:

Croup, also known as laryngotracheobronchitis, is a type of respiratory infection that is usually caused by a virus. The infection leads to swelling inside the trachea, which interferes with normal breathing and produces the classic symptoms of "barking" cough, stridor, and a hoarse voice Fever and runny nose may also be present. These symptoms may be mild, moderate, or severe. Often it starts or is worse at night.  It normally lasts one to two days.

Apparently Matthew is susceptible to it since he’s now gotten it twice in a few years.  When he woke up Thursday he was having trouble breathing, so my wife took him to the emergency room.  Wikipedia says more:

Croup is a relatively common condition that affects about 15% of children at some point. It most commonly occurs between 6 months and 5 years of age but may rarely be seen in children as old as fifteen. It is slightly more common in males than females. It occurs most often in autumn.

Well, he’s older than five and it’s not autumn.  It’s now five days, and it has not gone away, but then he’s not had fever or a runny nose.  He does get a burning sensation in his throat.

When he missed school and word got around his class that he had gone to the hospital, his classmates were all concerned.  One of the girls in his class called him to check on him and they were on the phone for 45 minutes!  Only to be interrupted because it was getting toward dinner time.  What a cute conversation.  He had the phone on speaker and I was in the next room and caught a few snippets.  (I wasn’t trying to listen, truly.)  But I did catch that she had prayed for him when she heard, which I found absolutely adorable.  I love the fact that he goes to Catholic school, and I can’t imagine that from another child in public school.  Matthew it seemed did most of the talking.  I guess the laryngitis did affect him when it comes to chattering.  He’s such a chatter box, but he’s got to learn in a conversation to let the girl say a few more things.  Then he pulled out his harmonica and started playing “a song he wrote.”  That was so funny.  He also took out his guitar (which he had gotten at Christmas) and played one of his choir songs for her.  I think he impressed her. 


Here’s a recent picture of Matthew in his choir robe with a few members of the children’s choir.  He’s the only boy in the children’s choir and feels perfectly comfortable with that.  


Looks like he may develop into quite a lady’s man.  ;) 

Monday, January 6, 2014

Matthew Monday: Snow, Freezing Cold, Christmas, and the Croup

I haven’t had a Matthew Monday in a while, so here are a few items.

(1) Christmas.  Does Matthew love Christmas?  Does a bear discharge in the woods?  In addition to more toys (like he needed more die cast model cars) he got a three wheeled kid’s scooter from his Godmother.  It looks something like this except it doesn’t have the basket and those strips on the handle bars.  Basket looks geeky anyway.

 
 

Since he can’t ride it outside yet because of the cold he’s been “practicing” (as he puts it) in his room and the upstairs hallway.  The noise listening to him from downstairs sounds like he’s running over speed bumps at Mach speed.  I may have to just let it vanish until springtime.  Here’s a picture of him in front of our Christmas tree.

 



 
And then opening a present with his elf hat on.



 

(2) A day or two after Christmas he woke up in the wee hours of the morning gasping.  My wife woke me up thinking he was choking.  She thought it sounded like he had something stuck in his throat.  I stuck my finger down his throat to make sure (I thought a spider might have crawled in) and there wasn’t anything.  Of course that caused him to start crying.  The wheezing really worried us.  So we got dressed and buttoned him up and we drove over to the Emergency Room.  Of course he didn’t want to go and was crying that he didn’t want any needles.  The triage nurse said he was like the third child in that night with the same symptoms.  Obviously something was going around.  She tried to take his blood pressure and that got him crying again...lol.  Once inside the doctor diagnosed it as “the croup.”  I said, “What?  What the heck is that?”  I had never heard of it and thought it might be something serious.  Not too serious.  A viral infection that causes coughing and wheezing.  He’s had a mild temperature (99F), runny nose, and a cough.  The ER gave him a steroid drink but nothing else.  He’s been out of school for a week but back on Monday. 
 

(3) Then we got nine inches (23 cm) of snow followed by arctic temperatures.  I think we actually got down to 1 degree F (-17C).  Matthew wanted to play in the snow.  We let him just once, after his temperature was normal and before the really bitter cold came in.   Some pictures in the snow.

 
 
The snowball was intended for me and he got me while I was shoveling.  The little devil.