It all started last week...gear up for a good juicy story! Mollie Loves to make bracelets and necklaces and makes one almost every day. One day she dropped her bead box and beads went EVERYWHERE! I'm a big stickler or beads, legos, Barbie shoes, etc and finding them on the ground. Brielle eats EVERYTHING. And anything she finds on the ground goes in her mouth. If I find them, they go in the trash despite my kids desires.
Well one of the small beads landed in our carpet by the stairs. She must have spotted it and put in her mouth while I was cooking dinner. We heard her choking and ran to her. Chad picked her up and hit her back until she stopped choking. I saw her bottom lip turn blue for about 2 seconds and then she was fine. As she continued playing I could hear an actual whistle and some wheezing coming from her lungs. I KNEW something was stuck and I KNEW we had to go see a doctor.
We waited about 45 minutes and ate dinner since she seemed fine. Her breathing was getting more labored so we threw all the kids in the car and headed to Insta-care since it was about 7pm. I called ahead to make sure that they could do an x-ray for us and they assured us they could. NEVER AGAIN will we be back!!
They saw us immediately and upon listening to her lungs and checking her vitals and oxygen levels the doctor (stupid doc #1) looked me straight in the eye and said, "This is an emergency!" She said both her lungs were blocked and she knew something was stuck as well. She proceeded to call an ambulance since at instacare they had no tools to treat a child for choking. (WHAT?! what kind of place is this?!) Then she started spewing her mouth. Talking about how she needed to get to primary childrens and if we drove her she would die. Then she decided that we needed air med and called them. Well Insta care is in the tiny building with a tiny parking lot....where is air med going to land?!
THEN she started telling me that they may have to do a tracheotomy and crack her chest....WHAT THE?!!!! (Meanwhile my other 2 kids are sitting there watching this scared to death bawling their eyes out. Keep in mind, Brielle is still sitting on her own BREATHING and crying and playing around perfectly normally).
Once they decided there was no way air med could land, they decided that the ambulance would take us to the helicopter pad and we would go from there. Chad dropped our kids off at a friends and headed into slc as quick as he could.
Ambulance ride #1...she looks fine, right?!
Once we got to the heli pad the crew piled in the ambulance. The head guy looked shocked..."Whats wrong with her?" he said, "She's pink, fat and happy!" It was here that the paramedic told me and the air med crew that the doctor at the insta care was crazy and that she shouldn't be a doctor. The air med crew agreed she needed to get to a hospital asap but didn't think that she needed to be flown and be charged the outrageous amount when she was acting so well. They did agree that they would accompany us over to the hospital in tooele though just in case something happened. I called Chad and told him we were going to Tooele and he was already almost to SLC so he had to turn around.
Ambulance ride #2! Upon arrival Dr. Ricky had already been on the phone with the previous doctor and with primary childrens. She had planned to do x-rays in tooele and go from there but the doctors in Primary childrens really wanted her to go there from the outrageous report they received form the insta care doc.
Enter Ambulance ride #3 to Primary Childrens! They whisked us into a resuscitation room and the room immediately flooded with nurses and doctors. When Dr. Scaife entered the room he also looked in shock...."What's wrong again?" he said. "this doesn't look like the sick little girl we got a report on." Once again, the insta care doc had scared more people than me. He ordered an x-ray and couldn't believe one hadn't already been done. X-rays showed that she indeed had a blockage in her left lung and was hardly getting any air to it. Yes it was an emergency and yes she needed to be at Primary Childrens. I was relieved that I wasn't crazy.
It then took 4 nurses and a whole hour and about 6 pokes to try to get an IV in her. She was freaked out and exhausted. As was I! By this time the doctors had realized that she ate dinner not too long ago and they needed to do a scope and had to wait 6 hours before the surgery. SIGH!
By midnight we had a room, a crib, and a bed for me. Chad decided to go home and sleep and come back in the morning. By this point I still hadn't cried. I was too scared to. I had one tear fall when they called air med but that was it.
They monitored her though the night closely. I guess the danger was in the bead moving and cutting off her air supply completely. It was scary and I listened all night for her to quit breathing. She woke up happy and ready to play despite being hooked up to a hundred cords. And with some major bed head!
The paramedics gave her a bear and she packed that thing everywhere! Bright at early at 8 AM they took her into surgery to have a Broncoscopy. I almost cried when they took her, but I didn't. I felt like I needed to puke but didn't. We went to the cafeteria for some breakfast.
I just kept eating to try to keep the need to puke away. It sorta worked. About 45 minutes later the doctor emerged with a smile on his face and holding a small jar with a purple bead in it! BEADS!! UGH...I knew exactly where it came from.
He said everything went great and they were moving her to recovery. I couldn't wait to get back there. She was such a trooper and came out of the anesthesia just fine. She wasn't even very groggy but her voice was scratchy as they said it would be.
I got lots of snuggle time after that since she just wanted me and soon she wanted food and to be able to play. She's really into necklaces right now and thinks everything is a necklace. At one point she had 4 cords around her neck pretending they were necklaces. Don't worry, this was closely monitored!
I'm so grateful for healthy kids. I can't imagine having a child who needed constant surgeries or medical issues. It would be so exhausting. We got home about 1 the next day and I was so glad to be back with all my kids and be home. It wasn't until that night that I realized how lucky we were to still have Brielle and how the tables could have easily been turned. And how fragile life is. During family prayer I couldn't help but get choked up a bit. Then hearing each of my kids mentioning Brielle in their prayers really hit me. I cried....and cried....and got in the tub and sobbed. I know we were blessed and watched over. I was overwhelmed by my Heavenly Father's love for me and for my children. He knows me and knows what I need. We had so many friends help us in our time of need and I'm forever grateful
I'm happy to report she is pink, fat, and happy and running around again. Kids are so resilient! I'm SO BLESSED!
