Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Relax...NOT!

Just when I thought it was safe to relax....all hell broke loose!

(Warning....not for weak stomachs)

Sunday was a nice day even though it rained. We were inside for the day and I noticed that nasty cough Kacey had is creeping back. I gave her some Children's Tylenol Cold (multi-symptom) and she seemed to be feeling great! Bedtime was at 8pm since she had school in the morning. She said her goodnights and gave her kisses and before long the house was silent and only the sound of the TV that I was watching could be heard. At 11:30pm, I was in the middle of watching a program when I heard a cough then a gasp...then another gasp that sent me flying into Kaceys room. She was trying to suck in air and cough and all she was doing was gasping!!! Then she started gagging and throwing up mucus and foamy stuff. I was shouting at her asking her if she could breath and she kept gasping and shaking her head no! Then all of a sudden she puked really hard and she caught her breath. WTF?!?! I was so scared and shaking by this point and I got her to the bathroom to change her and noticed her pupils were nearly as big as the color of her eyes. She was still breathing weird and she could barely talk because she said her throat hurt and her chest was tight and hurt. Yikes! I thought it was best to go on and take her to the ER because I wasn't sure what just happened. Driving to the ER I checked her blood sugar so I would have an accurate number to give them...333!! So we walk into the ER at 12am...register her in...explain what happened and they see she is holding her chest...tell them she's diabetic (not that this was diabetes related but I wasn't sure) and the lady tells us to have a seat and a nurse will be out to get her shortly. Wait....wait....wait....an hour goes by....no nurse! So finally after nearly and hour and a half, I went back up to the counter and asked her how much longer it would be? She told me that every room in the ER was full, they had 3 ambulances show up with patients and there was about 6 patients ahead of us in the waiting room and it was probably a 6-8 hour wait....WHAT?!?! Ummmm ok my response was "Does she have to pass out for someone to assess her and tell me whats going on?" Geezus!! By this point, Kacey's breathing was back to normal and her pupils were going down. She still had some chest pain and I asked her if she felt better to which she replied "A little." So now....do I wait all night in the hospital with her...Frankie misses work....Kayleigh misses school....only to be told she is fine now OR do I take her home....stay up all night...let Frankie go to work...Kayleigh go to school....and then I take her into her doc in the morning? Hmmmmm I guess I will go with the 2nd choice! So I went back up to the registration window and got our insurance card and told her I was taking her home. She says "Well if she gets worse you can always call the ambulance." I felt my blood boil by then and my reply was "Yes Mam, I will call the ambulance and she WILL NOT be transported back here!" We left and I ended up staying up all night *cry* Frankie got up at 5am to go to work...Kay got up at 5:30am to get ready for school...I called the doc at 8am and told them what we went through at the ER and they asked me if I could have her there by 9:30am!! YES!! Take her in...we got to see the CNP that I really like....and she tells me she wants me to take her back in for an x-ray and she has a 99.9% accurate diagnosis but she wants to see how bad it was. OK...so whats the diagnosis? Apparently, while Kacey was asleep on her back, she vomitted and when she sat up....the gasp I heard was her sucking it back in and the choking was her actually choking on her own vomit and then she finally threw it back up. GEESH!! The pupil size was from the "flight or fright" reaction you get when your scared. She woke up from a sound sleep...choking! So her natural reaction was to panic and thats what happened. So...back to the hospital for x-rays. Kacey gets chatty with the x-ray tech and tells her that she wants to be a nurse too and so the x-ray tech did her x-rays and then took Kacey in the back to show her how they are developed and then showed her that her chest looks like on the screen. How cool is that? Talk about a positive experience!! Kacey was so happy about being able to see what her lungs, heart, ribs, stomach and spine look like. We got a call about 4 hours later to tell us that it was confirmed that she did aspirate some vomit but it wasn't severe enough to be put on any antibiotics but if she got worse in the next few days for us to call back to the office and they would call her something in. Perfect! Whew! Talk about a whirlwind! LOL...just when I thought it was safe to relax...ugh! She spent the afternoon relaxing and watching movies. Last night, I finally crashed around 9pm....40+ hours with no sleep...thank goodness for "mid-afternoon caffiene fixes"!

This morning she woke up with a blood sugar of 200 but she said she wants to go to school and she is feeling fine.

Until later....

3 comments:

Penny Ratzlaff said...

How scary! I'm glad she's OK.

Cara said...

Bless your heart! ER's suck! I swear, I would just get into the habit of using the diabetes to get seen faster. Pathetic you have to do that, but a little "her blood sugar won't go down/come up and she's throwing up" will get you a long way.

Jill said...

Thanks Penny!

Cara- as soon as I told them she was having difficulty breathing, I told them I tested her on the way there and she was a 333 combined with throwing up and the lady registering us in said "Yeah we see people in here all the time with high blood sugars" ...so I knew that wasn't gonna work! Sucks that Children's hospital is an hour and a half away! :(