max and me had a first.

very early this morning max and me had a first... i had my first 911 call for a child and he had his first trip to the hospital in an ambulance.

i want to it start off, max is okay.

last night at 1:20ish i woke up with what i thought was lilly screaming a very high pitched scream and then heard max crying a tiny cry. i followed the noise to max's room, it was dark i couldn't see but i thought lilly had to be in his crib with him... but she wasn't it was just max hunched over making those sounds. i picked him up and realized he was having trouble breathing, he was trashing his head and arms all around. he bumped his mouth on my collarbone and then his lip started to bleed. he then tried to cry harder but wasn't able to because he couldn't breath. i ran into our room and said to nick "he can't breath, he can't breath what do we do!!!" he ran downstairs and called 911. i placed him on our bed to take a closer look at him,.. he just laid there, he didn't move... just laid there and tried to breath, he started to turn pail in color.
we had a nebulizer from last winter when max had a cold, the 911 responder told us to start him on a treatment and help would be here soon. i was shocked in about 3 minutes the police were in our house and in 7 or so the paramedics were here. the nebulizer treatment helped but he still was struggling and they wanted to take him right to Theda's ER. i had nick call my mom and dad who live 3 minutes away to come and watch lilly (who was still sleeping). i road with max in the ambulance, nick met us right there when we got out(he had to be driving way faster then us). they gave him a steroid shot and another nebulizer treatment. he had a chest x-ray that came back clear for pneumonia. 5 hrs later they told us he has a server case of croup.

if your not aware with a diagnosis of Down syndrome there are many, many, many truly wonderful things, but a one of the small negative things can be thinner veins, canals and airways. so this is part of the reason why max had such a scary reaction, the other part is that he is so young, three and under the dr. said seem to have worse reactions.

i can say that my sister has gone through an experience like this where my nephew was having trouble breathing,... and i can say one of the wonderful things i have learned by having max in my life is that you really don't know what other people are going through until you lived it(makes you less judgemental). i know now a little of how she felt. the fear for your child's life. it's strange, it's a strong powerful feeling of absolute helplessness. at least that is the best way i can explain it.

sitting in the ER waiting i told nick how lucky i feel,(you my be thinking, lucky? she is in the ER!) i told him i feel lucky because i know of so many other families that are here so much more often, might be for feeding tubes or heart issues, we really are lucky.

max seems do be doing much better today. he is on steroid medication and nebulizer treatments 4 times a day.

the dr. said that with croup it acts up at night more then in the day, so please say a little pray for max tonight:)

oh one more other first for max... in between typing this max found his way up 5 steps before turning back to see if i was still there:) time to get up the baby gate:)