Zacharys first trip

Sunday was a rough long day for Zachary. All morning long he was really fussy and I finally noticed that his little middle finger was completely swollen and bright red. I stuck his finger in hydrogen peroxide and it bubbled white. Then I soaked it in warm salt water for as long as he would let me. Then, I went poking around under his nail to see if there was a splinter or something in there. He has never screamed so loud. It did relieve some of the pressure in his (i'm sure throbbing) finger, so he was a little happier after he finally calmed down. Poor guy. But that was just the beginning of his (and mine) long day.
Billy came home that night about 9PM after being gone all weekend at a softball tournament. He went to bed and I went to work on my activity for the RS evening meeting (which happened tonight). At about midnight, Zachary started barking in his crib and struggling to breath. It woke Billy up and I came running out of the office. Zachary had been stuffed up for the last couple days and had trouble sleeping, but this was a whole new level. Croup. It was really scary to listen to and watch his poor little chest concave so deep with each breath. Billy wanted to take Zachary to the Emergency room and wanted me to come to hold him. So, we called our neighbors who came over about 12:20 to stay at the house with sleeping William and we drove to the hospital.
We were in a room by 1AM and they gave Zach a shot of steroids. About 1:30 a respiratory specialist came and gave him a treatment to relieve his labored breathing. It was this serum that turned to a vapor as the oxygen pushed through it and they held it in front of Zachs mouth and nose. It helped to reduce the swelling of his larynx so he could breath easier. Within 10 minutes of him breathing this stuff he sounded way better and seemed to really calm down. They wanted to keep us for a couple hours to make sure things didn't get worse after the vapor wore off. Sure enough, about 2:30AM, Zachary woke up and had a sort of panic attack. His breathing got very labor intensive again and he was barking really loud. He calmed down after about 5 or 10 minutes, but the doctor came back in and ordered another dose of the vapor drug. 3:15, the specialist gave him another dose. By 3:45 Zachary was wide awake and smiling, breathing sounded normal and the doctor gave us the okay to head home. We left the ER about 4AM and got home about 4:30.
Our sweet neighbors were asleep on the couch. They told us that at one point some loud snoring woke up William. They read him some books and he fell back asleep... He doesn't remember this though. It was a long night. And ofcourse Zachary was ready to get up around 7AM and William about 7:45. Zachary seems to be over his croup now, I sure hope he never gets it again. No fun.