Croup, You Are My New Arch Nemesis

I have heard of croup before, but I had no idea what it was or how bad it was, until Moose got it this week.

croup (krōōp)
noun. A pathological condition of the larynx, especially in infants and children, that is characterized by respiratory difficulty and a hoarse, brassy cough.
[From dialectal croup, to croak.]

Basically? Liquid Hell is in Moose's chest and nose, and is coming out by the bucket. His harsh cough rivals that of an old man, his poor little nose is rubbed raw with all of the snot and Kleenex wippings that it has endured. He is absolutely pitiful, carrying Doggie under his arm, and following me around the house like a puppy.

He is one of seven kids from daycare that are out with this. I guess this is the big negative with daycare-getting infected with hellish diseases.

As most of you know, this weekend is our big weekend. We celebrated Christmas early with my friends and family so that we could drive up and spend the holidays with my in-laws in Wisconsin. Well, last night, as we listened to him sobbing in his crib, we had to make a very hard decision: Do we chance an eight to nine (ten?!) hour car ride with Moose being this miserable? I left the decision up to Cory, even though I knew what the obvious choice was. And he made the right choice, the only choice we could make, really. We have to put our trip off.

This really sucks double, because, last year? We had to do a very similar thing. We had just bought our house, and Moose got sick. I was off several days while he recovered, eating up my vacation days. In the end? We didn't have any vacation time to go, so we had to reschedule our visit for January, during a long weekend.

I'm not sure when we will be able to come up for the rescheduled visit. We have talked about February, because there is a concert that Cory wanted to go to, and to celebrate Cory's brother's birthday as well. So that might come to fruition. We will see.

Right now, our priority is getting the little boy better. I am back in the office today, Cory is home with Moose. We decided to take Moose in to the doctor again, today, just to make sure that the croup has not turned into anything additional, like an ear infection. We want to nip it in the bud if possible, because of the upcoming holiday weekend, and I'm pretty sure the pediatrician's office will be closed.

I'll keep you updated, keep Moose in your thoughts.