August 18, 2025
I cautiously started telling people that have asked about Oliver that it looked like we were out of the woods—that maybe somehow he was not going to get this virus after all. Maddie and Liam recovered quickly from their fevers but had lingering congestion and coughs. Oliver had shown zero symptoms and was so full of energy.
When we put him to bed last night he was acting totally normal. Then I woke up to Will telling me that Oliver had croup and we needed to help calm him down. He was gasping for air, so upset and scared that he couldn’t breathe well. I rocked him and held him as he fell back asleep in my arms, finally able to quiet the noisy inhales and exhales, while Will called the on-call doctor.
We have come so far in this journey, and yet as I held my precious boy in my arms, I was immediately taken back to seven months ago—holding this same baby and rocking him as he gasped for breath—not from croup, but from the cancer that invaded his tiny body. The cancer that made his pain so bad he couldn’t take full breaths. The helpless feeling we had as parents, knowing we had given him all the pain medicine we could, praying that God would heal him.
We have gotten to see a miracle these last few months, and yet it doesn’t take much to send my body into a spiral of fear and helplessness. (Excuse my digression from our current situation).
Back to last night: after we got him calm, we took turns sleeping with him through the night and he slept well. At clinic today, our doctor had me get a chest x-ray to confirm nothing dangerous was brewing in his lungs (I still haven’t heard the results). Then he had to get blood drawn. After sticking him three times and still not getting enough blood, they told us that was the best they could do. Our doctor wrote us a steroid for the croup and told us to go to the ER if it got worse.
Oliver did pretty well the rest of the day (although he woke up from a 10 minute car nap and didn’t fall back asleep). I had to keep him from becoming upset or his breathing would deteriorate quickly. He spiked a low fever this afternoon, but thankfully I had just asked our doctor at the appointment, and he said since he had seen him, he was okay with us not coming to the emergency room and just watching him at home.
We are still keeping a close eye on him, but we are hoping to stay out of the emergency room for now. Thank you for your prayers!