During our summer break, our family had the chance to return to Latvia and visit family and friends. It was an amazing trip with a few bumps along the way.
I consider myself a fairly well seasoned traveler, having lived in 4 different countries and visited many more, but I continue to learn. Living in Hat Yai, we need to fly to a major city to board an international flight, usually Bangkok. Typically we would fly to Bangkok, get a hotel for the night and fly out the following day, but on this trip,
our flight didn't leave until midnight. We planned to fly into BKK on the morning and fly out in the evening, eliminating the hotel stay. That was a mistake. Our day started early and we spent the entire day traveling, to Bkk and between 2 airports. We had been on the road all day and had not even boarded our 10 hour flight to Istanbul. It was too much stress. Our poor son had a very difficult time handling it. He became sick and on our flight had night terrors when he slept. We had never experienced anything like this, he had never had an episode like this! I tried to soothe him, but he was panicked, confused, and scared. The flight attendants asked me if he was okay. I had no idea! He did that twice while trying to sleep on the plane. Then when landing he vomited into a plastic bag I was holding.
Once we finally arrived in Riga, he seemed fine, just a few head cold symptoms. Of course we were tired, so we ate an early dinner, showered and went to sleep. No sleep was had that evening. I have explained in earlier posts about my son's Croup, something he should have outgrown by now. It has not been as much of an issue in Thailand because of the humidity, but Latvia is a much drier climate.
He awoke having trouble breathing, but was also in a night terror and would not let us put the nebulizer on him. He was again confused and scared. The more frightened he became, the more difficult it was for him to breathe. My husband and I had to physically restrain him and force the mask onto his face in order to get the medicine to enter his body. It worked, but did not work very well. The Croup episode was so severe our standard course of meds did not have the desired effect. Our hotel called an ambulance for us and we were taken to the Emergency Children's hospital. It took quite a few rounds of meds and a few different ones before his breathing returned to normal. We spent 1 night in the ER and 1 additional night in hospital. On the second night my son had another night terror. I quickly called the nurses in to witness it. They were slightly less concerned, possibly recognizing it for what it was. Now I speak conversational Latvian, but nothing like putting my language skills to the test like throwing me into a hospital and an emergency situation. With a little Google and some more discussion with the nurses, we figured out what was happening with the sudden awakenings and decided they were probably brought on by stress.
This was the night the tics began. Once my son had calmed down I saw him tic with a sudden head and neck movement.
We were also able to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist that could not see any abnormalities in my son's throat that would lead to repeated Croup episodes. She suggested it could be acid reflux irritating his throat and aggravating the Croup. After questioning my son, he did admit that he does have symptoms of acid reflux. We will tackle that soon but modify his diet to see if that helps. One step at a time.
Finally we were let out of the hospital, my son was able to breathe normally and we could enjoy Latvia. After a few nights the night terrors stopped, but the tics continued to happen, sometimes with small vocalizations. The more we settled the less they occurred. The rest of our time there was AMAZING! I love the city. It's so walkable, so many parks, so many things happening in the city, visiting friends, eating great food. We spent some time with my brother's family, and went to Lithuania with a great group of friends.
When we lived in Riga, we met and made life-long friends. Most of us don't even live in Latvia anymore, but we all came together for one weekend. Great memories! The kids had not seen each other in years, but immediately fell into friendships and great play. The night terrors only occurred 2 more times. Once when my son slipped on the stairs and banged up his shins REALLY badly and then once after flying home to BKK after a harrowing 15 hour layover in Istanbul. (That will be another blog post)
My son still tics but it seems worse when stressed. We will see what happens as we settle back into life here.
It's too overwhelming to tackle all the issues at once, and we will slowly start addressing them as we ease back into normality.
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