A Letter to a Friend after the Most Traumatic Day of my 10-year parenting career

Hi, Angie,
Thank you so much for praying for us this week. It has been crazy! I have been thinking about how overwhelmed I have been with phone calls, text messages, emails, and follow-up inquiries at every turn. It is so amazing to me #1 how fast news spreads, and #2 how loved we are and what an amazing support network the Lord has provided for us here. We have very very good friends. I struggle with feeling guilty about not returning all the phone calls, but I know that is silly, and I would much rather know who is thinking of us than have silence and feel alone. So yes, I'm happy happy happy for your inquiries, and I'm sorry I've not been able to respond before now. Mary is fine except for her eye injury. I'm not sure how much of the story you heard, and I've been wanting to record it as a story of the Lord's faithfulness, so I'll type it out and then I can paste it into other emails as people inquire.

Early last week I took Jonah and Zeke in for strep cultures because of sore throats and head colds. Then Mary went to the doctor last Thursday with a head cold, which they diagnosed as adnovirus (one of 10,000 common cold viruses). On Friday she was grunting and wheezing so we called the pediatrician, went back to his office, and he immediately sent us to the emergency room to get an urgent and immediately effective epinephrine-laced breathing treatment. I held her while she screamed and tried to get away from the mask, but the worst part was the nose bleed and $150 co-pay. As her airways opened up, they administered a strong dose of oral steroids and Motrin which was intended to keep her lungs and airways clear for 36-48 hours. After several hours of observation, they let us go home with the diagnosis: Croup. And oh, by the way, she has an ear infection, get this prescription filled for a 10 day antibiotic. By bedtime, my head was congested and my throat hurt, but we were coming into the weekend and my mom was here, so I felt optimistic.

Saturday morning we went to Zeke's little league baseball game and then straight to the spring luncheon, and then straight to the airport for my mom's 3pm flight back to Atlanta. When I got home from the airport, I felt exhausted and took a long nap. Sunday morning I stayed home from Sunday school but tried to attend worship (in the bride's room), while Mary cried to get down, cried to be picked up, wouldn't stay in the stroller, kept slamming the doors to the t.v. cabinet, and halfway through the sermon I gave up and drove home. Sunday night we attended evening worship, but Mary was again fussy and I could not hear the sermon, and walked with her in the narthex until the children were finished with their program. I felt sick and frustrated when we got home, and by this time Isaac was hacking and barking with a croupy cough. He required a nebulizer breathing treatment before bed and woke up twice in the middle of the night coughing severely. He has cough-variant asthma, triggered by mild illnesses and colds. He stayed home from school on Monday and Monday night Joel called me home from the Women's Ministry Council Meeting at church because Isaac was struggling to breathe. We spent the next 3 hours on the phone with a nurse from Children's Hospital trying to discern whether he needed to go to the ER. She determined he was borderline and told us to monitor him closely, so Isaac slept with Joel in our bed and I slept on the twin bed in Mary's room. Both children coughed throughout the night, and neither of us got any sleep.

Tuesday, Isaac stayed home from school again and at 11:30 we picked up Zeke from his half-day kindergarten, and went straight to our pediatrician, who diagnosed Isaac with, no surprise, croup and asthma problems. We ate chicken noodle soup and quesadillas for lunch and then Isaac and Zeke decided to flip over some chairs and bring out pillows and blankets to make a fort in the living room. Mary was toddling laps around our wooden blanket chest that we use as a coffee table, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her trip over a sofa cushion and fall against the blanket chest. She cried out one garbled cry and as I walked over to her, she fell into my arms. I sat down in the glider and noticed that her eyes were closed and her right eye had blood coming out on the inside corner and tears watering out of the other side of her eye. I was trying to gently open her eyelid to check on the eyeball, but it was tightly shut against me. Isaac and Zeke both started praying at the same time and Zeke stood up and said, "Mommy, her lips are gray." Time stopped. I looked at her face and it was ash white, her lips gray, and all color drained from her complexion. She was as limp as a wet noodle in my arms, and I put one hand on her stomach and realized, in one horrible instant, that she wasn't breathing. I remember saying "Oh please, God" and placing my mouth over hers, then blowing into her mouth. She stirred, cried out as she exhaled, and immediately returned to unresponsive limpness. Her stomach did not rise again. I grabbed the cordless phone and dialed 9-1-1 with trembling fingers. I think Isaac and Zeke were praying; I sensed them near me but I didn't not see them. I felt like I was in a tunnel, and everything outside of my lap obscured to a mist.

I wish now that I had a recording of the 9-1-1 call. It would have helped with all the questions I answered 25 times over the next few hours. All I know is that I carried her to her changing table, laid her down on her back and exhaled into her mouth again. Just like the first time, Mary stirred, cried out a garbled cry, and stayed gray and unresponsive. I kept thinking I had to get one of the boys to call Joel on the cell phone, but I couldn't think where it might be. I told the 911 operator that I had two other children in the home and needed to reach my husband. His name and direct office number came flowing out of my mouth, and the emergency operator told me to stay calm, that the ambulance was turning on to my street. He kept asking me if she was asleep, if her eyes were open, if she was responsive, if she was breathing, and I just kept saying no. I think I told the boys to take the dining room chairs back to the table and clean up the cushions and pillows so "they" would be able to help Mary. Chairs and pillows evaporated from the living room and the phone operator told me the ambulance was pulling up and that I should take Mary into the front yard. I felt so helpless carrying my baby girl out of the house with arms outstretched. People were approaching but my eyes were only on the ambulance driver as he met me halfway between the street and the door, stretching blue gloves over his hands and turning on his flashlight. He asked me what happened and I retold the story as he pried her eye lids open and shined the flashlight into them. She tried to squirm away from him, and I was immediately alert again. I had been walking in a fog until that moment. He led us into the side door of the ambulance and looked at her bloody eye as she began to whimper and try to look around. He put me on the stretcher and asked a lot of questions while observing Mary, then told me she needed to be seen in the emergency room.

The handset to the cordless phone had made it with me to the ambulance. I remember asking the operator if I should stay on the line or hang up, and he said, "It's okay to disconnect now". The phone was now ringing over and over again, but inside the ambulance I was far too far from the base to be able to connect with the incoming call. I knew it was Joel but I couldn't figure out how to get to the cell phone inside the house. Suddenly, a police officer walked up with my cell phone and my diaper bag with my wallet sitting right in the top. A neighbor wanted to stay with the kids, but a week ago I had watched from my window as she was arrested on charges of giving a false identity to a law enforcement officer. I told the officer that I didn't feel comfortable leaving the kids with her, and said I needed to follow in the van or the kids needed to ride in the ambulance. They brought the kids out of the house, locked the front door, and handed me my keys. The officer had directed them to get a toy or a book, and Zeke chose to bring a blue plastic Transformers car/action figure and Isaac brought a book (fiction baseball). When I mentioned my husband didn't have a carseat for Mary in his car, I passed Mary over to the EMT and the officer escorted me back to the living room to get Mary's infant carrier/carseat. My neighbor was by the mailbox, hugged me and asked if there was anything she could do to help. I graciously declined, and the police officer followed on my heels like he was afraid I would pack a suitcase or run away if he let me out of his sight. I grabbed the carseat and relocked the door.

They strapped me to the stretcher with Mary in my arms, strapped Isaac and Zeke onto seats, and drove away. I remember that the school buses hadn't been able to get through because the ambulance was blocking half the road and our neighbor's car was parked on the side of the road opposite. Cars could get through, but not the buses. As we left my street, they turned on the sirens and I realized this was kinda fun, like an adventure. I looked over at Zeke and he was looking at me and fiddling with his Transformer. "Isn't this cool, Zeke? You've never gotten to ride in an ambulance before!" He just looked at me blankly and said, "Yeah". I looked over my shoulder toward where Isaac was sitting, and he was buried in his book, seeking shelter behind the cover and escaping into the storyline. "Don't you want to look around at the inside of the ambulance, Isaac?" "Not really."

I called Joel and finally got to tell him that Mary was responsive and becoming more alert, although she seemed really tired and the EMT wanted me to keep her awake. I kept sitting her up, but she just slumped against me and whimpered. Joel walked into pediatric ER just after we were wheeled into a room, and from then on it was answering the same questions over and over. I wanted to record this story while it's fresh in my head, because like all stories, it will disappear otherwise. The rest was fairly easy. She became increasingly alert and even playful as the nurses checked her vitals, the doctor put an orange liquid in her eye that glowed fluorescent yellow under the blacklight, a scratch on her retina was identified, the tech took us for a C-T scan, we ate popsicles, called my mom and our pastor's wife, watched Nick Jr on TV. Elizabeth brought Jonah from school to the hospital. The E.R. doctor thought Mary may have passed out when the intense pain caused a "breath-holding episode". I tentatively disagree, since she collapsed immediately and didn't resume breathing after passing out. It really doesn't matter why she lost consciousness, but it bothered me that the E.R. doctor kept asking repeatedly, "How long was she unconscious?" and "Are you certain she has never held her breath before when she was angry or hurt?" When the results of the C-T scan came back clear (no swelling, bruising, or pooling of blood), we were discharged into the care of St. John's Opthamologist. He looked carefully inside Mary's eyeball, reassured us there was no permanent damage, that the "superficial lacerations on her upper and lower eyelids did not require sutures", and that her antibiotics (for ear infection) would protect the eye while the scratch heals over the next several days. "On a side note, her astigmatism has improved since the last time I saw her!"

We got home around 5:45 and two different friends from church showed up with Kentucky Fried Chicken. Cindy's meal had been offered that morning just because we were fighting croup; she had no idea we'd been at the hospital! Lee ate with us and was a tremendous help as she cleaned up and loaded the dishwasher and managed the kids while I gave Isaac a breathing treatment. She left just before 7, my mom called to check in, and my head was throbbing from my illness and the stress of the day. I missed our bible study's year-end gathering, but around 9pm Heather and Rachel brought some gifts and plates of food from the gathering. I went to bed more tired than I can ever remember. Thunderstorms and breathing treatments interrupted much-needed sleep last night, but it didn't really matter.

I thank God for sustaining Mary's life, making me clear-headed when I needed to be, preserving her eyesight, and for providing a tremendous support network. I had 15 phone calls, 6 text messages, and 5 e-mails from concerned friends who were praying for us within 3 hours of the incident. Our pastors and even the seminary president called to check in with us throughout the day, and we cannot express in words the profound gratitude that we feel today. My last expression of thankfulness goes to our pediatrician, Dr. Finn, who personally called this morning at 8:30 a.m. to ask how I was doing. He quipped that Mary was over it in 10 minutes, but it will take the mom 10 years to recover. I LOVE my pediatrician. Whether Mary knocked herself unconscious or held her breath until she passed out, we'll never know, but my pediatrician said, "Yesterday morning you woke up to a happy, healthy little girl, and this morning you woke up again to a healthy, happy little girl, and that's all that matters." Nothing else matters. Thank you, God.