the ER with Miss E

The last time I was in the ER, I was 5, I think.  I knocked my teeth into my lip and needed stitches. 

Since then, I haven't had the need for any real emergency medical attention and thankfully, neither have my children.  It's always made me really nervous because I like to have more of a plan in life and the emergency room visits are definitely not planned.

So here's the tale:
On Thursday, my kids and I went to visit my parents in Longmont.  It's only an hour away, so we go often enough, but we also planned on spending the night, which we don't do often.  We had a busy day and Miss A and Miss E both missed naps so they were really exhausted by the end of the day.  I bathed them and read to Miss E and laid her down.  It was 7:30 and she fell asleep quickly.  That was shocking, but I was pleased.  Miss A went to be about an hour later and we grown ups got time to just chat. 
At 10:30, I heard Miss E.  It sounded like she was crying and coughing.  I thought she may have thrown up or something.  I deep sighed and when I got to her room, she was sitting up, have crying, have coughing, and panicked.  Something was very wrong.  There was no throw up and her cough sounded like the barking seal.  I picked her up to assess and quickly decided nurse mom who was just downstairs needed to give me some help.  When I got her downstairs, I had been holding her long enough to know she was only half breathing.  It felt like she was doing that uncontrollable sob that you can feel in the chest, but she wasn't crying.  I could hear every breath.  We tried a steamy room followed by cold night air.  That got her calm enough to hear that her breathing was terrible and calm enough for her to throw up all over me.  That was it.  We wrapped her in a blanket and my mom drove me and Miss E to the ER.  It was about 6 blocks away. 
We got there and they made me sign papers (while holding a not breathing baby - that seems stupid to me) and then the triage nurse tried to get a heartbeat and oxygen levels.  That made the girl panic again.  They decided the bluing lips was good enough to do more immediate help.  Her oxygen was around 75%, for those of you who know what that means. They did an epinephrine mist on her and within 5 minutes of being there, my girl was breathing. Later, she had a steroid.  They make you wait 4 hours to observe so we didn't leave until 3 AM, but I left with a sleeping baby who was breathing and content. She had croup.  Stridor and croup.  I have seen the mild, take-care-at-home version.  I'd never seen anything like this.  Neither had my mom.  It came so fast and strong. 

this was 2 AM - when she finally fell asleep

 

see the glowing toe -  the ET toe? she tried for 3 hours to get that thing off and I spent 3 hours keeping it on - it was the oxygen and heart rate monitor

I've been a mom for almost 5 years now and really have counted my blessings that the emergency room hasn't been in my life.  But I've never been so grateful for the medical world as I was that night.  I felt her struggling little body and saw the complete panic in her face.  I heard the pleas as she told me it hurt (she patted her chest and said, "urt" about every cough). I thought about the speed of her sickness followed by the speed of her recovery.  I feel blessed.  She was blessed and watched over.  And now, I look at her and her sister and see the joy, fragility, love, pain, and happiness of life.  I know it was just a little thing to many out in the world who deal with scary things often, but for me, it was a new reminder of mortality and love.