Our Daily Bread

The past two days have been a bad whirlwind. Yesterday, Jule was coughing so hard that he was dry heaving and retching. I called the nurse, and she said to give him breathing treatments of Albuterol, 4 hours apart. I was fine with that because, after all, he didn't sounds croupy at all. We did two treatments, and they seemed to help slow his cough down a little. We put him to bed around 9:30, and he fell asleep right away.

Kevin and I got ready for bed, and Kevin was asleep when "it" happened yet again. It was around 11:30. Jule woke up AGAIN with severe croup. Kevin ran in to get him, and I ran into the bathroom and started the shower as hot as possible. We took him in there, but it wasn't steamy enough yet, and he was not doing well at all. He was struggling to breathe, croupy coughing, retching, letting out as much of a cry as he could...over and over. We ran him downstairs to put his head in the freezer, and we just could not get him close enough to the cold. I was having to hold a bowl under him while he tried to catch his breath and stop dry heaving. It.was.horrible :(

Kevin called 911 during this, and we ran back up to the bathroom, which was now very steamy. I sat on the toilet seat and rocked him while Kevin waited for the ambulance. I was able to calm him enough in the bathroom to get him to stop retching, and he would cough off and on, but he still had a lot of strider when he was breathing. Thankfully, the fire truck arrived in minutes, and we had four very helpful firemen in our bathroom (which freaked Jule out more). By the time I was dressed for the ER, the ambulance was here, and off we went.

Thankfully, our neighbor heard the fire truck and ambulance and offered to help with Noly. Kev took Noly next door to have a sleepover with her little 6-year-old friend, and then he was able to come down to the ER to be with us. They treated him with steroids, and we were home by 2:30.

He seemed to sleep peacefully through the night, but he could not stop coughing when he woke up. It wasn't croupy, but very forceful and still causing gagging. We got in with a Pediatrician at noon today, and we have an ENT appointment with the ENT we love tomorrow to try to see if he can find out why this keeps happening (4x in 4 months).

As I sat in my dining room eating a sub for lunch while Jule played, I prayed, "Give me this day my daily bread." I looked down, and literally, I was eating bread. But that wasn't what the prayer meant to me. He is the Bread of Life, and from Him comes all I need. I need Him to give me, each day, what I need. The "food" that comes from Him brings life, and I can't live day-to-day without that in my life. I NEED Him. I need Him to help me get through all of this. It is so hard watching my child suffer. It is so hard watching him struggle for breath. I hate it. And it happens over and over and over, and we don't really know why. The ER staff acted like this was crazy frequent. Please pray with us that God will give the Doctors wisdom to find what is causing this, that God will touch and heal Jule's body, and that God will give us peace in the meantime. We are praying for much-needed sleep for all tonight.