Of Nights and Throats

Last Sunday, following a fantastic time in Kansas City, we texted my mom to find out if the kids had gone to church with them or if she had taken them to Sunday school at our church. Gideon had been protesting the idea of missing ‘his class’ while Piper loved the idea of going to the one where she got to be with Gideon. It was a dilemma without a good solution. In the end, when the text reply came back, we discovered that the three of them, Gid, Pipes and my mother, were all curled up under blankets in her bed watching ‘kid shows’ as Gideon wasn’t feeling well.

Indeed he was not. By Sunday night, he was worse. He left the dinner table to go to bed and just collapsed by himself in his blankets. A fever. A horrendous barking seal of a cough. Croup had returned. The much hated, sleep stealing jerk that it is was back for another round. And why not? It has been visiting us at least once a year since 2007 and it wouldn’t be fall/winter/cold/flu season without it.

Tuesday dawned with the brightness of hope. It had been cold enough to sit outside with him when his cough was terrible in the middle of the night and he didn’t seem to be doing too terribly bad, but the stridor was undeniable. I called to beg for a steroid without being seen because this is not the kind of sickness I am wrong about. I am a pro at diagnosing croup. The nurse hadn’t called back by nap time and Gideon had been convinced that he would make it back to preschool if he could just sleep off the illness. But no one can sleep without oxygen and forty five minutes after he laid down, the kid was out of bed, gasping. Red cheeked, white chinned and blue lipped he had fear all over him as he went outside to suck down the coldness.

Pinked up lips and a calmer breathing pattern and I was on the phone to the doctor’s office. Steroid called in and we were on our way to healing.

But two kids means two rounds and she started in on Thursday. A slight cough but it didn’t quite sound the same, so I took her in and surprise surprise she has croup, but with a sinus and ear infection kicker. When she falls, she falls hard.

She is still there – somewhere on the ground oozing around like equal parts water and corn starch. Still coughing all through the night. Still begging to take a nap an hour after she wakes up. Still perking up for a few hours and then crashing back down into a puddle of awful that requires tears and begging for sleep. She is so tired and her throat hurts and I am so sorry. I wish I could make it all better and I am trying not to miss the lesson for me in the midst of it all – stuff like patience and sympathy and the sustaining power of Christ. Good things to learn, even when the lessons come wrapped in feverish tiny foreheads and raw red throats.