The Croup!

Thursday...

Tuesday night Abby woke up about 1 a.m. with a horrible cough... almost barking. I immediately self-diagnosed her with Croup, and then called the doc to confirm. He agreed with her symptoms and said there was not much I could do for her, just let it pass (about a week). She slept with a vaporizor last night (Wed). I slathered her with Vicks and fed her Tylenol and Robitutussin. She's got a very mild case so far... not much coughing and a very low fever. Her spirits are good and although she spent the day in bed (by choice) on Wednesday, she was up and running around today. I'm a little concerned because the baby is starting to bark tonight, and he seems to take to being sick much harder than Abby. She usually breezes through with minimal signs of illness, and he always gets the full version. But, so far, he's OK. *knock wood*

Temperatures hit about 52 today and the sky was clear. (My ideal weather!) I took the kids for a walk in the stroller. Abby loves the double stroller. She sits up front and I recline her seat so she can reach back and hold Georgie's hand. The whole walk Abby was pointing things out to Georgie... trees, birds, squirrels, cats in people's windows, leaves on the ground... she's very observant and I hope she teaches him to be as well.

On a sad note... Natalie's mom died Tuesday night. After spending 2 months in the hospital, she finally gave up the battle she fought so well for so long with her kidneys. I'm still amazed that through it all after putting in a full week of work on her feet and having dialysis 3x a week, she still managed to push on like it was nothing... I can tell you for a fact, I could not have handled it nearly as well as she did... The last 2 months must have been hell for her. She had most of her small intestine removed due to it being full of gangarine (spell?), her lungs were always filling with fluid (at one point they pulled almost 2 liters... I didn't know anyone's lungs had the capacity). Due to this, she had a breathing tube inserted around the clock. Not long before she had he transplant, she had bypass surgery from the damage from all the dialysis. I wished I had gone to see her before she died... she was always like a second mom to me when Natalie and I were growing up. Who knew she was really going to die, or who would let themselves believe it, anyway? I guess it goes to show that you just never know what’s going to happen from one moment to the next… Now that Natalie and I are "all grown up" we seemed to have grown apart. Funny how life changes... the people you know are not the people you once knew...