Terrified

My daughter woke up at 5 a.m., whining and doing what I call the “garden rake scraping a concrete driveway” noise. I throw the covers back and stumble into her room to see what’s wrong.

She’s in the bed, sweating and breathing pretty rapidly. It seemed like she was struggling to breathe. My normally talkative toddler was nowhere to be found.

I picked her up, took her into our bedroom and woke my husband.

“I think we need to take her to the ER,” I say.

I call the after-hours/urgent care nurse and she tells me to take her to the affiliated children’s hospital about 5 minutes away.

We throw on clothes, pack a quick bag and head out.

Once we get there, they take care of her quickly, and after a breathing treatment and some steroids, she’s almost good as new. Gave us some medicine to administer over the next few days to help her get back to normal.

It was our first ER visit and I hope to God it’s our last. While it seemed very run-of-the-mill to the doctors and nurses, there are no words to describe how worried I was. Of all the diseases and ailments out there, asthma has always freaked me out. Especially in children.

And now it seems like the very thing I fear most has taken up residence in my daughter’s lungs.

I felt powerless because I couldn’t just lay hands on her and make her better. I couldn’t just snap my fingers and all of a sudden her lungs would cooperate. All I could do was drive as fast as I could people who could try their best to make it better. And thank God they did.

Have you ever taken your child to the ER? How freaked out were you? Did you feel powerless as well?

Comments

  1. kayeanise says:

    The Urgent Care Centre doctors know us well. Asthma is a tough one for kids. It runs on my side of the family (including me) and my youngest has a trace of it. Good news is that most kids grow it out, so give her the treatment and pray for her to get it out of her system.

  2. Mary Grace was vomiting blood one night when she had rotavirus and I was 7 months pregnant with Claire. I was sick too, as was her Daddy. She was REALLY sick. The worst part was the IV. Ugh.

    My brother outgrew his asthma. Hang in there.

  3. As the mom of a medically fragile child, I have been to the hospital/ER more times than I care to remember. It never gets any easier, but God will give you the grace to handle it. I hope that you do not have to endure any more trips to the ER. Read up on your daughter’s condition and try to head it off at the pass before it is emergent. God bless.

  4. Supermomwomanlady says:

    Thank God she is alright. I am sorry both of you had to go through that experience. I haven’t had that experience with Amia but I have with my little cousin and there are no words to express the weight on your heart as you’re rushing to an emergency room for a child. Ive found that educating yourself on something that scares you is the best way of dealing with it. You’re a savvy mom so I’m sure you will do your best to be prepared should you ever be confronted with this again!

  5. I’m so glad everything is ok! How scary.

  6. Courtney says:

    I had to take Jaedyn to the hospital when he was 8-9 months. He couldn’t breathe out his nose which means he didn’t want his bottle which means he wasn’t eating or producing any wet diapers. I took him to the ER. They took his temp and found out he had a fever, gave him some Motrin and we waited on the doctor to come back. After what seems like forever, the doctor comes back to check him out. “It’s just a virus you have to let pass. Look at him, he is too happy & playful for anything serious to be wrong with him, but let’s do chest x-rays just to make sure.”

    I almost decided to leave before they called us for x-rays becuase we both had gotten no sleep and I was sick of waiting. Turns out my baby had pneumonia…that kills people!!! Oh but no, he’s too happy and playful to have anything wrong with him. True enough he is the only kid I’ve seen who can be miserable and goofy at the same time, still, I was freaked out!

    Asthma is very scary to me too. A guy I dated a few years back died of it, it was so severe. He was only 22-23 and had a 2 year old son who will now grow up w/o a father. Still hurts me a lot. My little cousin has it too. I remember babysitting for her, having to sit there while she was on the machine doing her breathing treatments. I pray Ayanna grows out of it and/or it’s not too serious :(

  7. Awww. Asthma is definitely no fun. Many in my family have it and although Miss J doesn’t have “asthma” she does get cold induced asthma so we are owners of the inhaler and we have taken trips to grandma’s for breathing treatments.

    I did have to take Miss J to the ER when she was about 1 1/2 or 2 when she broke out in a rash that antibiotics weren’t curing. After a night in the ER and the doctor’s not knowing why she was all broke out and itching and screaming and crying, we were referred to the dermatologist who diagnosed her with eczema as soon as he saw her rash.

    Luckily she never broke out like that again although she still breaks out when the weather is hot. I felt so helpless not knowing what was wrong with her because couldn’t tell me, although she was scratching up a storm, and she was just soo irritated. I cried right along with her.

    I hope that little mama doesn’t have anymore nights like that one soon. You should request a breathing machine so that you can give her treatments at home if her breathing ever gets like that again. As long as you have the medicine at home you can absolutely give her the treatments and eliminate those late night ER visits.

  8. i had to take my daughter to the ER once for a nurse-maid elbow. i had never heard of it before…but alls i know is that one day, we were home and she fell awkwardly. next thing i know, she’s screaming like a banshee and if i touched her, she screamed even louder and wouldn’t move her arm. once we got there, the doctor diagnosed the elbow basically as being popped out of the socket and he twisted it back it and all was well…but it was scary because i thought it was broken or something :-( supposedly, this is a common injury among small kids

  9. @ Mrs. W – I had that too as a child – my one and only ER visit with my parents. My parents said they were scared to death that my arm was broken, but it’s a common problem. Weird, huh?