Frequent flyers

2014 has been a crazy year so far for my family. Aside from my pregnancy adventures with preeclampsia, both Joshua and Aidan have recently had medical scares involving either 911 or a visit to the emergency room.

A few weeks ago, Joshua went to get a haircut and shave at his favorite local barbershop. I had given him a gift certificate for Christmas and I was hoping it would be a chance for him to relax since the pregnancy stuff had been so stressful lately. However, he ended up passing out in the barber's chair while he was leaned back getting a (straight razor) shave (yikes!), and then because he wasn't lying completely flat when he went unconscious he started having convulsions. Scared the owner to death... afterwards she kept telling Josh, "I swear, it looked like you were being possessed!" Exactly what you want to hear after regaining consciousness. Josh was unresponsive for a few minutes after passing out so of course the good people in the shop called 911 and an ambulance came to the scene. After the EMTs took his vitals and Josh saw they were normal, he refused to go in the ambulance to the ER. He called me and I think he was planning on coming straight home, but I asked him what the heck was I going to do if he passed out again and had a seizure at home? While I could understand him not wanting to go wait for hours in the ER, I couldn't believe my medical professional husband was going to come home without being checked out by our family doctor at least. I convinced him to call and get a walk-in appointment with our PCP so that he could be given a once-over before coming home.

Thankfully, a friend from church walked into the barbershop to get a haircut right after this entire ordeal had happened to Josh. He gave Josh a ride to the doctor... which Josh later said was a really good thing because he almost passed out again on the way to the doctor's office. Our PCP ran some tests and took some blood, but told Joshua he thought he probably had just passed out due to a vagal response. Craziness! I told Josh he was just trying to show me up by having a seizure since that wasn't happening to me yet. (Bad preeclampsia joke...)

This week our Aidan Bear gave us a scare. As you might have ascertained from the story above, Joshua is not easily ruffled when it comes to medical problems. I suppose when you work in a hospital and see patients coding on a semi-regular basis, your average illnesses start to look paltry in comparison. In any case, he has a good handle on when something seems life-threatening, when something warrants medical attention, and when it's not that big of a deal. So when my husband says we need to take our child to urgent care because he hears stridor, I'm thinking, "Why aren't we just headed to the ER now? This is obviously a big deal if you think we need a doctor."

Aidan had starting losing his voice on Tuesday afternoon, and he had choked on some food that day. Josh thought he had cleared it, but that night when he laid Aidan down to put on his pajamas, Aidan started coughing and making these weird respiratory noises that Joshua thought sounded like stridor. Josh was worried that when he choked earlier that day he had ended up aspirating something and it was stuck in his trachea. So in the middle of a late-March snowstorm (not really, but it was snowing like a blizzard outside for a few hours that night), we bundled Aidan up and took him to urgent care a few blocks away. Of course, as soon as we got there, Aidan stopped showing any signs of distress and just sat there sucking on his passie like everything was fine and dandy. The NP listened to his chest and throat and said that she didn't think there was anything lodged in his airway, but because he wasn't showing any other symptoms of illness (no fever... ears, nose, and throat looked fine) and his oxygen saturation was a little low, we should keep an eye on things and if he got any worse we should take him to the ER. She told us she thought he probably just irritated his throat when he choked that day and that was probably what was causing the weird noises.

We came home and put Aidan to bed with the humidifier running, hoping to soothe his throat if it was irritated for some reason. I was up a few hours later talking with my mother-in-law when all of a sudden I hear noises coming from Aidan's room. I walked in to find him on all fours in his crib, making scary gasping/coughing noises. Joshua came in and got him up and our little champ was struggling to breathe and crying every time he coughed. "This isn't normal," I said, and off Joshua, Aidan and I went to the ER.

It was still snowing outside and very cold, and on the way to the hospital Aidan's symptoms eased. I told Josh, "I wonder if this is croup. I've read that cold air helps with croup and a lot of the time kids get better on the way to the ER because of being exposed to cool night air." By the time we got there and got Aidan registered, he seemed to be doing well again, and we were debating staying. But I told Joshua I didn't want to go home and have the same thing happen again. Thankfully a nurse pushed us through and we got into a room relatively quickly. Once we got back into the ER, I took away Aidan's passie (mean mommy) because I wanted the doctor to be able to hear the symptoms we had heard. We thought we were going to have a repeat performance of urgent care, but then I had to go to the bathroom and when I left the room Aidan got very upset. When I was walking back down the hall returning from the restroom, I heard this kid wailing and coughing and gasping and sounding generally horrible. I thought, "Surely that's not my Aidan Bear." But it surely was, and thankfully him causing a scene got a doctor in to see him stat. After about one minute of being in the room, the doctor says, "Yep, that's stridor, alright. He's got croup. We'll get you fixed up." Easier said than done, when you have a toddler who is afraid of the glowing pulse-ox they attach to his big toe (out of sight, out of mind , we learned when we covered it up with a blanket), terrified of the breathing treatment the respiratory therapist tries to give him with a nebulizer, and doesn't want to take any medicine. It's heart-wrenching to hold your kid while he screams bloody murder because he's scared... and also terribly endearing to watch him say, "all done!" to the doctors and nurses trying to treat him. He had to be monitored for an hour after the breathing treatment and the steroid they gave him, and thankfully once the medicine kicked in his breathing eased and he was in a much better mood.

So we arrived home from the ER at 2:00 a.m., a very sleepy little boy and two very tired parents. Sadly, I realized that I had made his breathing worse by having a humidifier running earlier that night, as warm air causes the airway to constrict further. The ER doctor told us when his daughter had croup he used to stick her head in the freezer when it got really bad. He told us we can manage this case of croup at home with a few days of steroids, but if it got worse again to come back for another breathing treatment.

The next day I went to the store and bought some essential oils to make a blend to help Aidan breathe and to help reduce the inflammation of his airway. I have a lot of friends who use doTERRA essential oils and there are pre-made blends available from doTERRA for different symptoms, so I looked up the ingredients for one called "Breathe" and bought a few of the oils (peppermint, lemon, and eucalyptus). I also bought frankincense which is great for reducing inflammation. When I got home I blended a few drops of each into a teaspoon of a carrier oil and we rubbed it on the bottom of Aidan's feet and on his back. We've been using this blend every day as well as finishing out the prescription for the steroid and he hasn't had any more stridor since the night we had to take him to the ER. Yay for blending traditional and homeopathic medicine.

Two days after our ER adventure I went into see my OB for one of my regular appointments and my blood pressure was too high. The NP who has seen me for the past few visits told me I was starting not to look as good (thanks...) and I told her honestly that I haven't been feeling as well. My blood pressure has been running higher and I just feel kind of bad most of the time now. She told me frankly that unless I want to have this baby next week, it's time for strict bed rest from here on out. She told me I don't have to be completely housebound, but she basically wants my feet up all the time... in the recliner, on the couch, or in the bed, she said. Thankfully we are now only 16 days away... my induction is scheduled for April 15 bright and early. Hard to believe that in just over two weeks we will be meeting our little girl. Life is never going to be the same for Aidan! Not sure he's ready to share the limelight with a little princess. :)

Our family has bent over backwards these past few weeks to help us. My mom is going to come back to Asheville next week and stay until I deliver, so that hopefully I can make it all the way to 37 weeks. I am so thankful for all of our parents who are there for us when we need help. Not everyone has that, I know. We are blessed! God has certainly been watching out for us... sending a friend to the barbershop to help Joshua at exactly the right time... letting Aidan get upset in the ER at exactly the right time so that the doctor could make an accurate diagnosis... providing time and resources for our family to come to Asheville to help us get through the end of this pregnancy. So, so thankful. The Lord is faithful, even when stuff is hard and we have to walk through it instead of having it disappear. It reminds me of that verse in Romans, "... we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." Our family's sufferings seem so slight but I am thankful that there is not a qualifier for this verse... no matter how big or small, the adversities we face can build something good in us if we will turn our faces in the right direction. I know I need hope built in me instead of negativity, which I seem to have an ample supply of!

Please continue to pray for us... 16 more days. Joshua is still chipping away at his school work with that deadline looming... pray for him. Aidan and I are improving, but I would also appreciate continued prayer for that, especially since I'm going to be "disappearing" soon again when I go to be induced. Thanks, ya'll. Peace, love, and HOPE.