RNRAIED PART ONE – The Baby and the Blue Lights

I had hoped that my first installment in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Adventures In Epic Dadassery would be a positive one. However after careful consideration I came to the conclusion that if you’re going to do an honest insight into dad life then you have to mention the bad shit. As anyone with a child will tell you, it ain’t all sunshine and sticky fingers.

Let me start off by assuring those concerned by the image, that Axl is now totally fine. In fact he’s spent the whole day singing at me. Switching between Baby Shark and George Ezra’s Shotgun, like a broken juke box rigged for use as a torture device. Don’t panic, he’s doing fine.

Last night, however, quickly became one of the worst experiences of my life. Now my littlest cub is prone to stirring endlessly through the night, much to the dismay of his maw and paw, but after a few coughs through the monitor we could tell he wasn’t going to settle himself. So I went upstairs to try and calm him down. The wee man is notorious for croup so we are well equipped to deal with our youngest’s famous seal impression.

This was different though. This time he really seemed to be struggling and was inconsolable, which only made his breathing worse. We took him down and tried our best to get things back to normal…no luck.

Although he was clearly getting breath you could tell it was a major chore for him. Even once the crying had subsided. So the old NHS 24 it was. Side note, parents to be, this will be your everything in times of need. They went through the usual script to begin with but hastened the proceedings once they were sure we weren’t over reacting and sent out an ambulance. Main thing was for us to keep Axl and ourselves calm. No easy task.

The ambulance arrived in no time, which was only evident after the fact as it felt like an hour. The paramedics, who I want to thank so much, were great with him. On with the oxygen mask, which he accepted gladly, and fixed up some steroids. After it was clear the steroids weren’t really helping it was a trip to Aberdeen A&E. As we are both complete psychopaths and had two children fairly close together only one could go. Dare not disturb sleeping beauty, who by the way remained out cold while all the chaos was unfolding around him. That’s my boy for sure.

So off Axl went with Mama Bear in tow. Leaving this prick to sit and wait for updates. These were fairly regular thankfully. One such update was the photo attached to tell me how proud mum was that he was holding the mask on himself. (We aren’t monsters who take photos in a crisis)

By the time they got to the hospital Axl had informed the paramedic of all the names of the character’s of Hey Duggee and fallen asleep. I was informed today that they decided to let him sleep for a bit and wheeled him into A&E on the stretcher. So for anyone in casualty last night that saw a lifeless toddler being wheeled into the emergency room, I’m sorry. Feel free to send me the bill for your therapist.

Axl was seen to and sent on his merry way fairly quickly and is now completely fine. Physically. As for the mind…the jury’s out on that one.

In the most beautifully anticlimactic end to this story it turns out that it WAS just croup. Only a really severe case of it. So a couple doses of steroids and he was right as rain.

And that was that. Traumatic to say the least. Now though only two things are going through my head.