hubby and I joked on as we went to bed Christmas eve that it would be our last restful one… the turkey must have heard us and decided to give us some practice for future crack-o-early Christmases. around 02:30, he started fussing in his bed.  when we went out to dinner after church, he gobbled down a bunch of onions (as I was carefully picking them out of my food because *blech*) so I had given him some gripe water when we got home and figured he was just having some gas discomfort.  by 03:00 he was crying so I went to check him out and give him some gas drops.  when I picked him up, he was burning up.  so some snuggling while waiting for the Tylenol to bring down his fever and gas drops to ease his tummy… we all got back to sleep around 05:00.  he continued to run a fever (high 102s) all Christmas day but he didn’t have any other symptoms of any kind and it didn’t really seem to be bothering him much. he opened gifts and played and had a great time with friends.

Saturday, he sounded hoarse when I got him up in the morning but that’s not entirely unusual since he tends to sleep with his butt in the air and his face pressed into the mattress and wakes up stuffy a lot.  by 09:00, he started with the classic croup seal cough.  we spent 45 minutes playing in the steamy bathroom trying to get him some ease but it seemed like he was getting worse.  by the time we left the bathroom, he seemed to be laboring to breathe.  he fell asleep on my chest on the couch for about an hour and when he woke up, he was sucking his whole chest in trying to catch breath.  we decided to go to the urgent care.

you really walk a fine line when you’re a first time parent.  you don’t want to be one of those crazy people who runs to the dr for every sniffle but it’s terrifying to think of the consequences if you ignore something serious.

by the time he was seen by the pa, his fever was up to 104.7 and his sats were down to 90-91 (89 is where they start giving supplemental oxygen).  the pa was obviously concerned and put a call into the on-call dr.  twenty minutes later, the dr came in and immediately stated that he was admitting the turkey to the hospital.

it wasn’t the most fun holiday weekend but, thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  steroids and breathing treatments fixed him right up.  the first 30+ hours, he was NPO and on IV steroids.  he laid around and cuddled and displayed general malaise.  the second day, the dr decided to try taking him off the steroids to and kept him another night to make sure that he didn’t backslide without them.  by Monday morning, he was definitely getting back to his usual self.  we had a heck of a time keeping him from tearing up that hospital room.

as far as hospitalizations, i’m glad it was a “non-serious” one.  and the pediatric unit and nurses were terrific.  here’s hoping that we never have to spend another night there again though!

my poor one-armed turkey