I wish I would have brought my camera. . .

So Thursday night, or should I say, early Friday morning, was a very interesting time. It was around 12:30 a.m., and I was just headed to bed. The girls were asleep and Justin was on his way home from the school. Just as I lay down Riley started screaming and coughing. I ran into her room to discover her sputtering like she had just thrown up. I climbed into her bed to check for throw up, but couldn't find any. She continued to cough and her breathing was very labored. By this time, Justin had come upstairs to help me. He had turned the hall light on so we could see better. Neither of us could figure out what was causing her to have such labored breathing. Then, Justin picked up her sippy cup--it is a small Thermos with a plastic straw. Justin noticed that the top had been chewed off. I asked her if there was something in her throat. She opened her mouth and then began to claw at her throat. She still couldn't breath very well, and Justin and I began to freak out. He went downstairs to get a flashlight to check her throat. When we realized that wasn't going to work, I suggested calling an ambulance. We pulled her out of bed and took her downstairs to watch a movie until it came. By this time we were frantic and she was calming down. She wanted to lay down, but we told her she had to stay sitting up. We didn't want to risk having her choke on whatever was in her throat. When the paramedics arrived they checked her breathing and agreed with us that there was something in her throat, and that she needed to go to the hospital to have it checked out. So Riley and I got on the stretcher and they put us in the ambulance. The driver asked us if he could use the lights and the sirens. I told him sure. He was afraid the sirens might scare Riley, but the exact opposite was true, she thought they were awesome. She liked looking around the ambulance and thought the little finger monitor was cool. She liked the little red light. She was somewhat disappointed when the ride was over. They took us in the hospital. By this time Riley was completely calm and her breathing was somewhat normal. It was still a little off, but she was doing much better. In fact she was chatting and pointing out interesting things. They took us into the waiting room, since it no longer looked like an emergency; she was thrilled when she saw the TV. There was no rush to get us in anywhere, which was fine with Riley, she liked watching the George Lopez Show. She was a little upset when they took us into our room. She brightened up rather quickly when she saw a get well balloon in the room. "Look mom, happy birthday to me!"
For the next several hours we sat in the room watching the Disney Channel, which was exciting because we don't get that channel at home. Several nurses and/or residents came to check on her and decided that she needed and x-ray. She loved the elevator ride up to the room, but was not excited about the x-ray machine itself. When we walked in the room the machine was resting on the table. The technician moved the machine up and then moved the table up. I told Riley that she had to lay down on the table so that the big camera could take her picture. She yelled in response, "No mom! I don't want it to squish me!" I explained that she wasn't going to be squished, she was just going to get her picture taken. She didn't like the idea of me leaving the room either, but she made it. After another exciting elevator ride, we went back to our room to resume our TV watching. By this time I was exhausted and Riley was totally wired. She was running around our room, balloon in hand, and going crazy. Finally, the doctor came in and told us that the x-ray was inconclusive, because if she did swallow a plastic piece it wouldn't show up on the x-ray anyway. So her diagnosis was that Riley had croup. She said the only way to test the theory was to give her something to drink. If she could drink it, then it was croup; if she couldn't drink it, she had something in her throat and they had to put some fiber optic something or other down her throat to check things out. So, they offered her the juice. Riley was so excited for that juice box. She drank half the box in one gulp. The doctor concluded that it was in fact croup and recommended a steroid to help the swelling in the throat. When the lady that we hadn't seen before came in to give Riley the medicine she noticed that there were pictures of cake on Riley's pajamas. She asked Riley if she liked cake and if she would share a piece of cake with her. Riley "took" a piece of cake from her pajamas and gave it to the lady. Several minutes later the nurse showed up. When we first got there, Riley wouldn't even look at him, but when he came in and said that he wanted a piece of cake too, Riley wasn't sure what to do. She looked at me and then down at her pajamas and found a Popsicle and "gave" that to him. He ran out of the room yelling, "See, I told you she would give me something too!" Shortly after that we were discharged. We called Justin for a ride home. They had taken us to Women and Children's hospital, which for those that know where we live, is a good twenty minutes from our house, so we had awhile to wait. Riley and I sat by the automatic front doors and waited for him. Riley was still pretty wired, even though it was approaching 4 a.m. She would run past the door, which would open, laugh and then run over to me. When Justin finally showed up he drove right past the doors. We ran outside to wave him down. I was afraid he hadn't seen us and was going to keep on driving. Riley started crying and said, "No daddy, come back. I want to go to Riley's house!" Then we realized he was just turning around.
Riley talked the whole way home and told Justin about her balloon, watching cartoons and riding in the elevator. When we got home I told Riley that she had to go back to bed. She said she wasn't tired and didn't want to. She wanted to play or watch something downstairs. Again, she insisted that she wasn't tired. I told her to climb in bed and try to sleep. Thankfully she slept until 11:00 a.m.

Even though this was one of the longest nights of my life, and I was afraid that some terrible thing had happened to my daughter, I still found several moments that seemed magical in a way: my first ambulance ride, which I got to share with Riley; watching Riley run around her hospital room in her pajamas and rain boots, with the balloon in hand singing "Happy Birthday;" watching her excitement with each room we went into--"Look at THAT mom!" All of this made me realize how great my life really is and how grateful I am for the things I have and oh how I wish I would have brought my camera to capture it all!




p.s. the only other time that we went to the emergency room with one of our children was when Valen stuck a peanut up her nose. she later sneezed it out and there was no harm done. apparently my children don't know how to have a real emergency. . .thank goodness!