This morning at 3 a.m., Captain Jelly Belly started screaming. Not just crying, but really screaming, in a way I’d never heard before. He had had a cold for the past several days, but we didn’t think it was anything special. By 6 this morning, though, when all the usual tricks failed to calm him down and stop the screaming, we had to admit that something was really wrong with our little boy. Nothing is scarier than looking at your spouse and knowing you’re both thinking, “Hospital.”

We got to emergency around 6:30 and the Captain was still screaming so we went right in. They quickly determined that the wheezy breathing we’d been hearing on and off the past few days was something much more serious than just a cold — he was having trouble breathing normally and his blood-oxygen level was low. They put him on a face mask and gave him some sort of lung medicine and he calmed down a little bit, but we had to go for an X-ray to rule out something serious. Nothing is scarier than when the emerg doctor says, “Pneumonia.”

The X-ray was horrible — they have to put the baby in a full body lock-up thing like Hannibal Lecter, and I couldn’t stay in the room because of George Foreman Jatania II. Nothing is scarier than hearing your baby scream from the hallway and not being able to do anything about it.

Anyway, it turns out it wasn’t pneumonia, but clearly there was some sort of lung infection going on, so they transferred us to the children’s hospital, CHEO. Nothing is scarier than the phrase, “Transfer by ambulance.”

Of course, by this time, all three of the Jatanias were way overtired, overhungry, and stressed out, so I had a misty-eyed moment in the back of the ambulance while Captain Jelly Belly had a pretty good time playing with the equipment and accepting the gift of a little stuffed bear from the EMTs, who he had eating out of the palm of his hand. And I didn’t even throw up, despite having had little to eat, which Georgie II usually really complains about. And everyone on the highway had to get out of our way due to our flashing lights. So that part, at least, was okay.

At CHEO, the Captain had many more face masks and some steroids to improve his lung capacity, but he continued to wheeze and gasp and be cranky. And trust me, nothing, nothing is scarier than the words, “We may have to keep him here overnight.”

Happily, after many, many hours, he started to respond to the medicine, and we were so, so relieved to hear the doctor say that we could take him home. They gave us an inhaler and some more steroids for him to use in the next few days. By the time we got home, the Captain was exhausted, but already showing signs of being back to his normal self. He’s sleeping right now, relatively peacefully — at least, no screaming so far. His parents are very, very happy.

just got back with his steroid prescription, which had a few warnings attached. The phrase, “May cause stomach upset and vomiting” is pretty scary, but right now, I think I can handle anything, because my kid is going to be okay.

Pardon me as I have another misty-eyed moment…and now, it’s time for bed.