Stridor breathing

Here is a brief video of Molly with her stridor breaths.  If your child has this type of breathing do not take him or her to the hospital call an ambulance.  You will hear the code in the background calling all available doctors to our room. You will see that Molly looks uncomfortable but isn't overly anxious or upset which is why I didn't find it necessary to call an ambulance.  However, lesson learned.  Turns out her vital signs were pretty bad..

"Stridor is an abnormal, high-pitched, musical breathing sound caused by a blockage in the throat or voice box (larynx). It is usually heard when taking in a breath. Children are at higher risk of airway blockage because they have narrower airways than adults. In young children, stridor is a sign of airway blockage and must be treated right away to prevent total airway obstruction."

Molly also had tracheal tugging you can kinda see her throat being drawn in with every breath which is a sign of struggle,  we definately got immediate attention at Valley Medical, Children's ER, Children's ICU and in the hospital. We also had lots of researchers, medical students and residents watching Molly closely, because while Croup is really common and is filling the hospitals right now,  these stridor breaths are not common, they said she was in respitory distress and had reactive airway disease which may be a sign for asthma in the future, still too young to diagnose right now.  Just an abnormally bad case of croup.  Leave it to the Burt family to have a rare case of something, 

Molly was so good through it all. The IV team came to get her IV put in and they put on our "magic" cream that we put on Max at home and she got very excited and whispered "port?". The whole room laughed as they all know that she is a twin to a cancer patient and how different her world is that she is asking for a port instead of an IV.

Molly enjoyed putting stickers on herself while we gave her breathing treatments.

We are still at Children's in the normal medical unit, hoping to go home soon if we can get enough fluids down her without the iv. We are also trying to decide whether or not to send us home with breathing treatments or steroids in case we get into another emergency situation. Will update more later...