The curse of the croup

A couple of weeks ago we had to take Lydia to the emergency room for the first time.  She'd woken up that morning with a fever which wouldn't stay under control even with Ibuprofen.  Then as the day progressed, she got crankier and crankier and stopped eating or drinking around midday.  She didn't nap and by 7pm that night she was panting and drooling incessantly because she refused to swallow her own saliva.  She looked absolutely miserable.  I'd never seen any sickness progress that quickly and I knew then that it was time to take our first trip to the emergency room.  Grandpa Welch came over and together he and Ben gave Lydia a Priesthood blessing before we went to the hospital.  Everyone at the hospital was very nice and it wasn't very long before she was diagnosed with croup ... AGAIN.  I've lost track of how many times she's had croup.  We'd been able to ease her symptoms when she first started having problems, but the last 3 times have required medical intervention and each time was progressively worse.  I will probably have to ask the Pediatrician if we can have a nebulizer or something because this is clearly not going away any time soon.  In any case, within 30 minutes of receiving a steroid and then a breathing treatment, our little princess was breathing much easier and had fallen asleep in my arms.  When the nurse came to check on her, she woke up and for the next two hours she bounced around the room in her hospital gown without a care in the world until they discharged us shortly before midnight.  We came home and one exhausted Lydia and two very relieved parents fell into bed and went to sleep almost immediately.