Not the kind of first to celebrate

Carter got his first cold, ear infection and case of bronchitis. Not the kind of first I'm happy to experience or celebrate.

Last Sunday he started having a dry cough.  The kind where you have a tickle in your throat and the only way to get it out is to cough. Over night he became congested and very fussy.  He slept a lot on Monday, which he normally doesn't do.  He was coughing a lot and really stuffy. We did several steam baths and I did a lot of saline in the nose and used the Nose Frida alot to suck out what I could.  He was up all night just crying.

By Tuesday morning he felt warm and hadn't had a wet diaper in 6 hours so I called the doctor bright and early and talked to a nurse for some time.  By 1 pm that day I knew I needed to get him in to see a Dr.  He had a bit of a temp and when the Dr. looked in his right ear he immediately said that he did indeed have an ear infection.  I mentioned his wheeziness and he listened to his chest but wasn't concerned. We left with a prescription for amoxicillin and were told to call back in a couple days if he didn't get better.

I spent all night Tuesday night watching Carter breathe as he slept.  He was so stuffy and congested and his cough sounded awful.  I didn't know what to do and it broke my heart to see my little boy like this.  I called the Dr. again Wednesday morning and we were in 30 minutes later. They gave us a nebulizer treatment in the office to see if there would be any changes in his breathing.  There was and my heart felt better, knowing this would help my boy.

We left with our own nebulizer and a prescription for some medicine to go in it.  Albuteral is crazy for babies.  Carter was so awake at night and while he seemed tired he would have eyes wide open and smile across his face. We learned quickly that his last treatment of the day had to be before 4pm!

Here we are a week later and he still has a cough but otherwise seems much better.  Thankfully, he does a great job taking his medicine and has a few more days to go with that. It was so scary and heartbreaking and I dread the next time he gets sick.