Update

Thank God for Charlotte. She got there at 7:30 this morning. I stumbled into Jude's room to talk to her about the early morning hours, and then stumbled back to bed to sleep for thirty minutes. My family will laugh at that statement because I have always said "I want all my minutes" regarding sleep. Emily (as usual) got herself ready, made her breakfast, and shuffled out the door to the bus stop. She is such a wonderful and responsible kid.

Charlotte acknowledged Jude's cough sounded pretty bad, and she put his pulse ox on. It hovered from 94 - 96 while I was in there. She spent a lot of time cleaning out Jude's nose, and said he had a vomit obstruction (gross) which could be causing some of the issues. She also said he is very congested, but that his lungs currently sound clear. She also agreed that he isn't running a fever yet. So she suggested that we watch him throughout the day and see how he is doing.

So what is it? Who knows. We know from the past that when Jude does this at about day three he is very very sick. Although, we haven't had a nurse there with him as many hours before. I am hoping that her attention in suctioning, CPT, etc will help this issue from escalating. She made a good point.......that if we go to the ER now if they don't see anything in his lungs they will try to send us home. It's sad but true. It might be croup, but Jude seems to have a repetitive pattern with this respiratory issue. I went into the ER last time just determined he had croup but it was the beginning stages of pneumonia, and he had streaks in the bottom part of his right lung.  We are pending a pulomonlogist referral, and maybe he can shed light on this a bit more.

For now we are hoping this is something that will pass quickly, but if it doesn't we know the right path to follow and to follow it quickly. Thanks so much everyone for the great advice, and the prayers.