Croup is crappy!!

So on January 6th Ethan started to come down with a fever and a cough. We weren't too worried about it, but kept our eye on him to make sure it didn't get worse. Unfortunately that night his fever stayed pretty high and the cough got worse. The next day he wasn't too bad and he acted like himself and played like normal but still acted a little sick. That night was a different story though. He was burning up and couldn't breath well and had a horrible barky cough. We took him to Redi Care at about 10:30 pm to make sure it wasn't something really bad. There was a 30 minute wait and while we were waiting we kept getting weird looks because Ethan was having a REALLY hard time breathing and his cough was just horrible. Finally when we went back to a room, they took his temperature and it was 104 degrees. I could see the look of panic in the nurses eyes. The nurse told us to take all of his clothes off so he could start cooling down. They gave him Motrin and Tylenol- which we had been giving him throughout the day- to also help with the fever. He is not too fond of doctors, so he was crying (it sounded like a seal barking) this whole time. The nurse left and a minute later the Dr came in which surprised me because they were so busy and said that we had been bumped to the front of the line because he heard what was going on. He looked in Ethan's mouth and ears and said he would be right back. He suddenly came back in and said that he thought it was Epiglottitis which is when the flap in the back of your throat swells up and cuts off your breathing. He looked kind of panicked and said that he was sending us to the ER by ambulance- even though the hospital is only like 200 yards away- but in the mean time he wanted Ethan to have a breathing treatment. They started the treatment while they waited for the paramedics and Ethan started to calm down. The paramedics arrived quickly and said that if it really was Epiglottitis then he would need to stay calm and we would need to get to the hospital quickly. We were taken to the ambulance and Ethan was given oxygen. On the way the paramedic was saying that he thought it was a bad cold and not Epiglottitis, but it was a good thing that we were having it checked out. As we pulled up and got out, there was a nurse waiting right there that took us to a room that was close by. Jerry heard the paramedics joking out in the hall that that was a really short $500 ride... ouch. They hooked him up to a bunch of things and started another breathing treatment. His temp had lowered to about 102 and he was finally calming down. The doctor said that it was croup and not Epiglottitis. They gave him a Popsicle which made him happy and after a while he was dancing after each bite. All in all we were there for about 2 hours and all went home exhausted.
We had lots of walks outside in the brisk air and the croup went away a couple of days later.