The Hard—And Scary—Side Of Parenting

Sometimes as a parent, we’re faced with unbelievably difficult (and often unthinkable) situations that both test and age us. My husband and I had one of those moments last night. But let me start from the very beginning.

In early 2017, when my son was about 13 months old, he caught respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)-pneumonia and ended up in the ER (unfortunately we were already very familiar with RSV because my daughter had been diagnosed at the ripe old age of one month). He only ended up being in the hospital for one night—thank goodness—but that experience still left a scar (on top of those we had already suffered with our daughter’s hardships several years before). Ever since that diagnosis, whenever my baby catches a simple cold, it quickly turns into a much more complicated issue. He doesn’t just get a runny nose and a mild cough that last for a few days. He gets an incessant barking cough and a low-grade fever that persist for days; airway constriction that requires constant use of a nebulizer and rugged steroid medications; and a congested, runny nose that takes weeks and weeks to go away.

Since January, he has had four separate episodes like this. The third time, which happened about two-and-a-half weeks ago, culminated in a croup diagnosis that required a double shot of steroid (one in each leg), numerous nebulizer treatments, and two different medications to help with his breathing. If you’re unfamiliar with croup, it’s a dangerous infection of the upper airway, which obstructs breathing and causes a characteristic barking cough, as a result of swelling around the voice box, windpipe, and bronchial tubes. His croup symptoms lasted for about five days. Five long days of sickness (for him) and sleepless nights (for all of us), of feeling so fatigued we couldn’t even think, of being constantly bombarded with fear, guilt, sadness, and depression. When it was finally over, my husband and I breathed a sigh of relief and hoped beyond hope that we were finished with another rugged year of cold and flu season, which year after year knocks my family for a loop.

We were wrong.

Just before bedtime last night, my son started coughing. It wasn’t anything abnormal but as soon as I heard it, I got a pit in my stomach and my anxiety levels flew off the charts because a “normal” cough just isn’t a normal cough for us. Turns out I was right to be so worried. We put the kids to bed and kept an eye on my son from the monitor. For the next three hours we didn’t hear so much as a peep from him. But then at 11 p.m., I was awoken from a deep sleep to my son barking harder and louder than a seal and calling out for my daughter. Even now that brings tears to my eyes: In a moment of despair and I’m sure fear, all my baby wanted was his big sister. ☹

The next thing we know he’s walking into our room hacking up a lung. OMG, that barking sound is one of the scariest things I’ve ever heard. And what was worse is that he was visibly and audibly having difficulty breathing. We could hear how bad his wheezing was even without using a stethoscope (quick side note: my husband is a clinical pharmacist with a medical background and spent years working as an EMT and in various hospital settings, so he has a bag full of critical medical tools for times like these). Clearly, our boy was having some sort of asthmatic attack, which had never happened before. As soon as we heard that, we leapt into action immediately.

I don’t even know what happened during the next few minutes. I went into complete and total overdrive, running downstairs to find the liquid steroid, measuring out the medication, scrambling to set up the nebulizer, rushing back upstairs to my son’s room, adjusting the face mask on his sleeping body, turning on the machine, squeezing his hand and watching, watching, watching his chest for signs of breathing. Those are the moments when, as a parent, you feel pure, raw fear. A fear unlike any you’ve ever known.

As the nebulizer hummed, my baby seemed to be doing OK but then he suddenly went limp in my husband’s arms, which we realized after was from pure exhaustion but which, in that initial moment, scared the living sh** out of me. We started calling his name and patting his back and chest. And suddenly, I was flashing back five years to that still, quiet moment in the ER when my daughter turned blue and stopped breathing. I never thought I would feel anything like that ever again…and yet here we were. After what seemed an eternity, we were able to rouse him. He opened his eyes and slowly started breathing in the medication, which had finally begun to take effect. The barking cough still lingered, though, so we decided to call our pediatrician’s emergency service. The doctor advised us to administer another nebulizer treatment and said if that didn’t work, we should immediately take him to the ER.

Now, if there’s one lesson we learned during our daughter’s challenging first few months of life (she was a preemie who spent a week in the NICU right after birth and then another week in the ICU with RSV one month after she was born), it’s that we should always ALWAYS listen to our gut and never EVER wait to call the doctor or go to the ER. Even if we think we might be overreacting. If we had waited any longer to take my daughter back then, we could have lost her. I will never again allow my fear of looking like a paranoid parent prevent me from doing what I believe in my gut is right. So, at midnight, we packed up our boy and took him to the ER (well, my husband did; I stayed home with our daughter, who thankfully slept through all this ruckus).

It was so hard watching my husband drive away without me. As much as I hated the thought of sitting in the ER, staying behind and waiting was far worse. So many different scenarios and questions play out in your mind. Will he be OK in the back seat of the car all by himself? Will he stop breathing on the drive to the hospital? Did we wait too long to take him? Did we do everything in our power to help him? How did this happen again? Could we have prevented it? Why are we as a family constantly being tested this way? Did I cause these issues in my children because of something I did during pregnancy? The questions, the guilt, the doubts, the fear, the paranoia are all endless in these moments.

Thankfully, though, the hospital staff was on their game and got my son into a room as quickly as possible. By the time he saw the doctor, my husband said our boy was all smiles and breathing much better. Even the barking cough had gone away. His lungs were clear, and he looked so much better that he didn’t even need a chest X-ray. Everyone in the ER told my husband that we had handled everything perfectly and made their job so much easier, which, quite honestly, was a relief to hear! As a parent, much of the work we do is based on gut reaction, instinct, and trial by error. There are rarely black and white answers and in those moments all we can do is hope and pray we are handling things in the best way possible. I think that’s the most challenging part of parenting—knowing how to handle situations you couldn’t possibly fathom would ever happen to you or your family. These are the things people don’t tell you about before you have kids. These are the things you couldn’t possibly understand unless you’ve been there. And I hope and pray none of you ever are.

Anyways, the ER doctor gave my son another dose of steroid medication, wrote out a prescription for that steroid (which we must use over the next two days), and discharged him, noting that my son was “such a good boy.” They were back home within two hours and my little boy finally had some pep in him and a big smile on his face when he saw me. He even made me laugh because he told me the medicine the nurse tried to give him tasted like “cherry gross”—his words, not mine, LOL. We washed his hands, changed his PJs, and tucked him snug as a bug in bed, where he finally fell peacefully asleep at around 3 a.m.

I can’t say the same for me, though. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t fall back asleep. All I kept thinking is “what if this happens again?” I’m still thinking it now, actually. But we can’t live our lives in constant fear. The only—and most important—thing we can do is love our children with everything we have and take care of them to the best of our ability. Even knowing that sometimes we’re going to fail. We parents are given a gift in our children and one that we need to always remind ourselves not to take for granted. That’s what I try to take away from moments like these. It’s not easy, but nothing about this job is easy. Not all the stories of our lives will have a happy ending, so all we can do is hold on to the ones that do and live every moment as if it’s our last.

And on that note, it’s time to soothe my aching but smiling soul with some Josh Groban, go give my sweet, sweet boy a big hug and kiss, and thank God for the happy ending we shared today.