911 never gets easier

Tuesday night was our first 911 call in this house.

One of the main reasons we rented this house was to be closer to the hospitals, closer to family that could care for us in our time of need, closer for life basically.  I remember sitting in the hospital in august meeting some of the emergency personal that responded to my grandfather’s side, and telling them about our sweet Varrick. I told them all, it will be crazy and then she will be happy. Please just be there to support us in our crazy. Please calm Kensie.

 Please just be there.

But then we never had to call. 

We were able to support her at home. Drive ourselves into the hospital when we knew she needed more than what we could give her. He has asked me numerous times do you think she is growing out of it? Its been a while since blank has happened… I comfort him by saying yes, knowing in my head it just a matter of time….

Tuesday it was fine until it wasn’t.

She hadn’t napped that day due to early intervention visits, and the afternoon at a developmental peds for an appointment we had been waiting a year to have. We choose to go out to lunch and discuss our upcoming move with a friend. We choose to give up the nap and just enjoy some time the two of us. So when we put her to bed we knew she was going to sleep hard. And when she sleeps that hard, her body fails her.

I heard her alarms go off on the video monitor, by the time I got to the top of the stairs it stopped. 

 When I got out I listened at the door.

She was gasping. Coughing like something was caught. When I went to her crib, she was just there. Drooling, unable to move. I grabbed her, disconnected all her wires, and rushed her to our room so Kensie wouldn’t be witness to what I knew, was not good.

The noises she was making was out desperation. Immediately I thought of the popcorn kernels that spilled on the floor… did she aspirate one? Is she choking? Omg what did I do? I looked at my husband and saw his face. He had the same look of desperation. Pure panic. In that moment I knew it was time.

I dialed. I spoke as calming as I could. I blurted out everything so fast. 29 bothwick. 20 months. On monitors. Failing to breathe. Come quick.

Before I hung up they were in our driveway. They took her. In that first moments they found there was most likely nothing stuck, it sounded like croupe. Praise the lord…. They started walking me through their plan, and that we needed her carseat to move to the hospital….i  looked up in the midst of this and saw a friend, it  calmed me. I didn’t need to explain her, he just knew. Our sweet girl Kensie was comforted by the familiar faces of Mckennas dad, Poppys friend, a nurse she knew from the hospital.

A shot of steroids in the ambulance, Hours at the hospital, showed that her staff infection in her diaper area compromised things. She had narrowing of her upper airways and the cough we were hearing was her trying to get a breath through.

We have now come to the point that we can do all the supportive care needed at home that inpatient can do in the hospital. I go back and forth on how I feel about this. Someday its comforting, other days its horrifying. So when they offered for us to go home, I took it.  I was comfortable at that moment, it only becomes lessened the more time you spend in that room. The shot of steroids was so strong that she wouldn’t need another dose until the end of the week, when we could follow up with peds.

 so we left to sounds of street cleaners, and cars splashing in puddles on the street.

I needed to see Kensie, when I hugged her good bye at home she was shaking. She was scared her sister was going to die. She felt guilty because she told her to go back to sleep when she cried out earlier that night. “ is this my fault mommy” those words kept ringing in my head while was I watching a toddler pumped up with roids run around a hospital room. 

Our sweet Kensington has dealt with so much. As I crawled into bed as the sun was coming up, she crawled over and slept on my chest. I needed that moment before the round of phone calls had to begin and she needed me.

this past week has been just us. staying home and being still.

 I will never be sorry that this is our lives, i am sorry that everyone else comes after all of our chaos, and most of the time that means we miss a lot of your lives.

to those that understand, we are blessed to have you in our lives. and to those that choose anger at us, we pray for you.  that you will never have to know what it is like to be the one that has to be in our shoes. 

This is our journey.