Croup

I've been meaning to write about this, but haven't had the time (go figure). A couple of weeks or so ago, Vivi and Gavin both had a really, really bad cough, fevers, and they were very snotty. We took them to the doctor on a Monday only to find out that they had croup. Our doctor said that they needed to be on steroids for 3 (Gavin) and 5 (Vivian) days. He also mentioned that these steroids might make them a little loopy, moddy, and irritated (which was a HUGE understatement, by the way). Great.

The medication did not disappoint.

Gavin and Vivian were the craziest they had ever been (and I think that's saying a lot). They were nuts. Screaming over everything, crying at the drop of a hat, and carrying on about things that were seemingly insignificant. It was hell. They were very angry, sad, angry, happy, angry, and oh yeah, did I mention that they were angry? They would scream at us, slap one or both of us across the face, bite us, kick us, throw stuff at us, etc. It was completely insane. We had two miniature ninjas at home and had no idea how to calm them down.

Nothing worked. All of our old tricks of the trade were meaningless to them. Even marshmallows were thrown back at us!

But the worst part (I know, how could it get any worse) graced us with it's presence at night. The first night that we gave them the steroids, Vivian woke up at 1am SCREAMING HER FUCKING HEAD OFF (sorry for dropping the f-bomb, but there really is no other way to describe it). I ran into her room to see what was wrong. She was flailing about, screaming, kicking, punching, etc. It was also insane.

I picked her up, ran into the living room with her (hoping that Gavin would not wake up), and sat on the floor with her trying to calm her down. A few seconds later, Wes ran into the room. She was unbelievable. She would not take a break (or even slightly calm down). She was punching and kicking and SCREAMING at the TOP of her lungs. It was like she was possessed or having convulsions or something. She wasn't. But that's what it was like. I put her on the floor (because I was getting beat up by holding her) and just calmly talked to her. Wes and I did not know what to do. This went on for TWENTY minutes!

Then it abruptly stopped and she just looked up at me. WTF. I gave her a sippy cup of milk and we sat on the couch watching Sesame Street for about an hour before she drifted back off to sleep.

Wes and I had no idea what had happened. We thought that maybe she had a severe stomach pain.

The next night, she didn't wake up. But, Gavin did. At 4am. He did the same thing. Screaming, punching, kicking, rolling around on the floor, etc. Except Gavin's fit only (ha!) lasted about 10 minutes. And this time, we noticed that he never opened his eyes (we don't think Viv did either, but we weren't really paying attention to that when she went berzerk). When Gavin's fit abruptly stopped, he immediately went back to sleep. It was like a light switch was turned off. Screaming uncontrollably, switch, snoring.

That morning, I called the doctor in a panic.

She immediately said, "Oh yeah, those are night terrors. They're really common with this type of steroid."

"What should we do?" I asked.

She said, "Nothing. You shouldn't wake them up, because that can be worse. Instead, just make sure that they don't hurt themselves and wait for it to pass."

Shit. So, when it happened again the next night (with Viv), we did just that. Thank goodness that was the last night terror. And, thank goodness their croup is gone and they're off the steroids. I just hope that we never have to experience those night-terror ninja twins again.