first ambulance ride

On New Year's Day, we had a rather scary parenting experience.

Gus started having a raspy voice in the afternoon that day, but I didn't think too much of it.  I just thought he was getting a cold.

He was still in good spirits and was happily playing "Clone Wars" with Aunt Erin, Uncle Gene and Nora.

These are their costumes designed by Gus...

We started to notice that Gus was making a gasping sound.

We thought maybe all the running in the game was the cause so we made him lay down for awhile.  

We had been texting our family doctors (aka: Nano and Aunt Angie), but hadn't been too alarmed yet.  We talked about taking him in to the ER or Urgent Care, but decided to wait.  I wish we hadn't.

We were keeping a close eye on him, but let him go to bed.  Zach laid with him (thank goodness) to keep an eye on him.  About a half hour later he woke up completely gasping for air.  Zach started to put him in the car to take him to the hospital but Gus was flailing his body and I knew we needed to call 911.  We took him back inside while Zach called.  I was holding Gus for the scariest minutes of my life so far.  He started turning blue and his eyes were rolling to the back of his head.  I was frantically trying to get him to breath while Zach was giving me advice from the 911 operator.  Thank goodness the firemen arrived in about 3 minutes.  They gave him epinephrine to get him breathing, but he was unconsious.  He and I road in the ambulance to Phoenix Children's Hospital.  He doesn't remember any of it, but later on he thought it was cool that he got to ride in an ambulance.  Once we were in the ER they diagnosed it as croup.  It was a very bad case for a kid as old as Gus.  Usually they only see it that bad in infants.  His gasping is something they call "Strider" (which sounds cooler than it is).  After three breathing treatments in the ER, he was still having the strider so they admitted him to the hospital.   Once we got to his room he was wide awake for most of the night thanks to the drugs.  He got to watch lots of movies.  I mean LOTS of movies.  It was a grand total of twelve before we left.  

The next day, he was doing so much better and having lots of fun at the hospital.  He got French toast and sausage for breakfast and people brought him lots of presents.  

The nurses also gave him lots of fun toys from the hospital.  He was in good spirits again pretty fast...

He thought his glowing thumb was pretty cool.  

The doctors decided to keep him the next night because croup often gets much worse in the night.  They were right, but he didn't have a very bad night.  The next morning we were ready to check out with a happy little boy whose memories were only of the fun parts.  If you talk to him about it, the hospital would sound like a blast.  

He later asked if he could go back.  I said, "I hope not."