One Stop Boy Shop

“I’m Choked”.  Add this to one of the most terrifying phrases that my child can say.

Friday night and Saturday, I was down and out with a terrible stomach flu.  I spent the weekend in bed.

My 4 year old son Ian had a slight cold, nothing to concern us.  Just the standard sniffles, cough and runny nose.  By Sunday he had a terrible, wet cough  Robert and I decided that I’d need to take him to the pediatrician on Monday because it sounded awful.

Because Ian was sick (slight fever and that horrible cough), he slept with Robert and I on Sunday night.  Around 4:30 in the morning, Ian started crying and yelling in a panicked voice “I’m Choked!, I’m CHOKED!”.  I could hear him gasping for breath.  I immediately got dressed and told my husband I was taking him to Children’s Hospital.

The 35 minute drive felt like 4 hours.  It was terrifying and the first time since becoming a parent, I felt real fear that I’d made a bad decision by driving him myself and not calling 911.  He was gasping and rattling in the back seat (and not talking my ear off like usual) and scaring the bejeebers out of me.  Since he couldn’t speak and I was freaking out, I kept up a constant dialogue with myself that went something like this:

I should have called 911

Ian are you ok?

I could call 911 right now and park on the shoulder of the freeway.

They’d tow my car

I don’t care if they tow my car

Should I call 911

Ian are you ok?

Should I keep driving?

I wish that car would get out of my way

Ian, are you ok?

When we arrived at Children’s, I carried him in behind a woman with a sick baby girl.  As I wrote his name down, I looked into the waiting room and saw the room packed with children waiting to be seen.  I was certain I was in for a long wait to see a doctor and started yelling at myself again for not having called 911.

The staff there must be very well trained in just eyeing which kids need to be seen right away (that little girl that walked in ahead of us didn’t get called back for 3 more hours).  As soon as we’d sat down to begin our wait, they called our name.  We were escorted into the triage area with the nurse that had checked us in.  She said she’d taken one look at his ghostly white face, red rimmed eyes, flaring nostrils and pale lips and knew he was in trouble.  The triage nurse confirmed her concern.. “He sounds terrible” she said, “let’s get him straight in”.  She started calling ahead as we went to a room.

The room had a respiratory specialist, a nurse and a doctor waiting for us where they immediately strapped oxygen onto his little face and started taking vitals.  They hooked him up to blood pressure cuff, heart monitors, oxygen saturation monitor and determine “he sounds awful”.

Chest xrays showed no problems except that his lungs were enlarged due to the respiratory distress.  They put him on steroids and a breathing treatment.  The first breathing treatment was ineffective.  They had to keep him on oxygen to keep his oxygen levels up high enough. They forewarned us that it appeared he’d be staying a night or two at the hospital.

A couple of hours later, they gave him an hour long breathing treatment.  When it finished he still needed oxygen for another couple of hours.  Finally, he was able to keep his levels up himself and we were discharged late in the afternoon.  They believe that the gunk in his chest was clogging his airways and are requesting we encourage him to cough.  He’s using a nebulizer every 4 hours and taking steroids for 4 days.

Hopefully this scare is over.  I had a nightmare last night about Ian.  I think this was just my semi-annual reminder that our little ones are just so precious and vulnerable.  I was again reminded to hug my children tight and will never let go (they may have to kick me in the butt to get them our of their dorm rooms in college someday!).