BREATHE
(The worst week of my life)

Croup, or parainfluenza, is a family of flu viruses that, while communicable to everyone, affects small children the most. The virus causes a swelling around the larynx and trachea, resulting in a barking cough, and in children under five, labored breathing. In some cases this can be fatal.

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Do me a favor. Go get a straw. Not the normal ones you buy at the store with the colored stripes down the sides. The small ones. The kind that come wrapped in plastic and glued to the side of a juice box. The kind you plunge into the top of a Capri Sun and give to your kids when they're outside playing in the sprinklers. Now put it in your mouth and breathe. In and out as deep as you can. Keep doing it as long as this story lasts.

Now imagine there is no straw. Imagine that this is all you can breathe. No matter what happens, this is all the air you can take in. Getting light headed yet? Now imagine you're 15 months old and you don't understand why you can't breathe. You're 15 months old and all you wanna do is watch sponge Bob with your big brother. You don't know why mommy and daddy are crying. You don't know why you have to stay in this bed, in this strange place. You have a tube stuck in your arm and a mask on your face and your 15 months old. All you know is you can't breathe. You fight for every breathe you take for three days straight. In and out. You can't even sleep because it takes every thing you have just to draw breath.

Keep breathing through your straw. Don't pass out. We're not done yet.

Now imagine you're that kids father. Imagine you were there the day he was born. Holding him, minutes after his delivery, and he looks up at you. Straight into your eyes, and you know, everything you ever thought you cared about up to this point was meaningless. And now, in this hospital, you look down at him again, and he looks like a fish out of water. Pale, gasping for air, his little chest pulling so hard you can count his ribs. and all you want in the world is to lay in that bed instead of him. all you can think about it, is that you would sacrifice everything if it meant nothing could ever touch him again. Your entire life you've never been particularly religous... but you pray now.

Your that kids father, and for three days you've been watching him gasp for air, watching the monitors, pleading for help. Three days and all you can do is stroke his hair and say "breathe baby...daddy loves you..." Until finally on the third day, exhausted from the fight, he stops breathing...and the doctors rush in, calling for the crash cart, and the nurses push you and your wife out of the room. Imagine your that kids father and your standing in the hallway wondering if you will still be a father tomorrow. Your standing there, holding your wife, and wondering if you will still have a reason to get up in the morning.

Still got your straw? Still concious? Keep breathing, it's not over yet.

While you're standing in the hall, wondering if, in five minutes, you will still have a reason to exist. He calms down, he breaths again. Just barely. and as soon as he does, they rush you to ICU. Straight to the top floor. The building so high that out the window all you can see is clouds... like heaven's waiting room... Which at the time is not a comforting analogy.

Four more days. Four days of touch and go, hourly injections, breathing treatments, and you stroking his hair and saying "breathe baby...daddy loves you..." For a week straight you live at this hospital, sleeping on the floor beside his big metal crib and waking every hour to make sure he is still breathing. and then you wake up and he is fine. He is playing and pulling out his IV like nothing happened, and all he wants to do is jump around and watch SpongeBob with his big brother. Kids bounce back fast, but it will be a lifetime before you forget the fear you felt. It will be months before you stop waking up in the middle of the night to check his breathing, and you will never forget just how much he means to you.

Now do me one more favor, spit that straw out and breathe. Breathe in deep. Breathe a heavy sigh of relief... and pray that my son continues to do the same.