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November 29, 2007
I'm Back
Well, well. Yes, I am still here and there is so much I could write about that it is hard to know what to choose tonight. Here are the choices in my head: how awesome "natural" childbirth was, sharing about our lovely new daughter Bethany, my crazy new "jobs" that have divine fingerprints all over them, how psyched I am about my dearest friend's engagement and the love in her life, deciding what to do next year and the possibility of teaching again, how I feel that I am always about to go off the deep end by trying to handle three children under the age of four, that I am feeling increasingly pulled to writing, or that Bethany was airlifted to a children's hospital this past weekend. Whew! Just getting those topics out of my head is a relief and I almost feel that I could stop now, but that wouldn't be much of a comeback to the blogosphere I suppose.
Following the lead of media, I'll go with the story that has the most drama. Bethany Airlifted to Children's Hospital. What a ridiculous story really. Once upon a time, there was a daddy who worked in a germ-infested elementary school. He got sick (surprise, surprise). His son got sick. Then his daughter #1. Daughter #1 sucked on a pacifier and then inserted it into the mouth of newborn daughter #2. Newborn daughter gets sick too. In Beth it started with just a runny nose, then congestion, then a cough that made our friends tease her to lay off the cigarettes. On Thanksgiving I spoke with the doctor about her and explained that we were going to the mountains for a few days. The doctor thought we'd be fine. Two days later, the cough is still just as bad and she is obviously laboring more than usual to breathe so I spoke with the doctor again. She thought we'd be fine. That night at 2am, Beth was just about gagging on her mucus and I was worn out from wondering if we should have her seen or not. I thought, "How bad does it have to get before we go to the hospital--till she can't breathe at all?" So I woke Duff and said we were going to the ER. Our friends were fine to cover the other two while we were gone--I said, "I'm sure we'll be back by morning." The closest place was a medical "plaza" of sorts. Beth was the only patient in the "ER" so she got full attention. The folks there were great but I felt they were a bit extreme in their measures. Her saturation levels werent' staying quite as high as they would have liked after several breathing treatments and a shot of steroids, so they called an ambulance to take her to the nearest hospital with a pediatric unit. This ended up being TC Thompson Children's Hospital in Chattanooga, TN. The doctors did not think the hour and a half drive was fast enough so they called in the medical helicopter to airlift her there. The weather was too poor for the copter to land where we were, so I rode with little Beth in the ambulance to a rendezvous point to meet it. I thought this all was so over-protective and asked if she would be fine till we got back to Atlanta the next day--but they wouldn't hear of it. Basically, my baby was held hostage by the medical system. They werent' going to let me have her back if I wanted to. Thank goodness Duffy was there as the buffer zone, cause my momma bear was definitely emerging (especially when they mentioned possibly intubating her-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intubation-I would've taken her and ran). In a way I was glad that we were being switched to someplace that knew how to handle little ones, because I wasn't too confident after the specialist at the "ER" tried convincing me of how poorly she was doing by telling me to look and see how limp and weak she was ---hello! She is only 6 weeks old!
So after a nauseating 30-minute ambulance ride (they had me strapped to the gurney holding Beth), we had to kiss her goodbye and watch her fly up into the sky. I could not go in the holicopter with her. This was by far the hardest part. I knew her health would be fine--I wasn't worried about that--but just watching her go up, up, up, was about all I could take. Then as Duffy and I headed to Chattanooga we could see this speck of light in the dark night sky that was our little baby. I watched that light get smaller and smaller, and farther and farther away for at least 15-20 minutes. Again, Duffy helped to keep me together by telling me to just not think about it because it would be too much. We rode silently for the hour long trip to the hospital.
Bethany was admitted and put on oxygen and an IV. Her lungs were clear and she tested negative for RSV. The diagnosis was Bronchiolitis, which is basically a cold in a small baby that causes their smaller airways to swell and become blocked with mucus. They suctioned her out A LOT and taught me how to do the same. I kind of liked being in the hospital and the peace and quiet (because I knew she would be FINE), and it was nice having my meals cooked and delivered. We stayed all day Sunday and were discharged Monday afternoon. She is now doing much better--and (hallelujah) has slept through the night the past 3 nights in a row. I'm sure that will end tonight solely because I have decided to stay up late to blog.
This experience was quite an ordeal. I'm still not sure how to feel about it. Since I knew she was going to be fine it didn't worry me much. I thought a lot about the medical system, the protocol, and how it wouldn't hurt to add a little more common sense to the mix. As we were in the ambulance I felt a tinge of guilt because I thought "what if someone else has a real emergency and this ambulance isn't available?". Even once we got to the hospital some of the nurses said they weren't really sure why they airlifted her (yeah, me neither), but everyone did confirm that it was the right thing to do to bring her in---maybe just minus the bells and whistles. There is good in every story and this one is no exception. I won't ever forget being in the children's hospital and will hopefully volunteer at one someday to spread some cheer that was shared with us. Also we were able to connect with some friends of friends who showed Duffy and Caroline hospitality overnight, and saved them from a cheap hotel room. We ended up loving Chattanooga and the cool little city that it is. And finally, I have bought a lot of hand sanitizer and plan to use it often.
A Happier and Healthier Baby:
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| By amy | 11:49 PM
