We have a seal living with us. Yes, you read that right a SEAL. The seal is just a baby, about 15 months old and weighs about 24 pounds right now though I am sure he will get much bigger. He is a really cute seal but the noises he makes are down right scary at times. The kids have been asking for a pet for awhile but who would have ever thought we would have a Seal.
Okay I am not crazy, we really don't have a Seal living with us but Tyler sounds like one right now. He woke us up last night around 1:00am with a cough that you would have thought was a barking Seal. It totally freaked me out, I have never heard anything like that and then to make it worse he was having a hard time breathing. Not a fun feeling when your child is struggling to breath. I don't know why but the word "croup" entered my mind. None of the kids have had it, but I have heard about it from other people. So I immediately got on the internet and read about it and the symptoms were exactly what he had- a cough that sounds like a seal barking and trouble breathing. They suggested to steam up the bathroom via the shower and stand in there with him, so I proceed to do that. Tyler just kept looking at me and looking at the shower and then looking at me again, like "what in the world are we doing". Sure enough this seemed to help a lot and while I was doing that Daryl was setting up the vaporizer in his room. We stuck him back in bed and listened to him a cough every now and then for about the next 30 minutes and then he was sound asleep and breathing relatively well. Of course it took me a while to calm myself down and fall back to sleep.
The doctor confirmed today that it is croup and Tyler got a shot of steroids and within an hour he seemed much better for now. I guess we will know for sure tonight whether the Seal will return or if he has returned to his Seal friends.
(Oh and then to top things off the doctor also told me that Allison might have a blown ear drum, WHAT???)