My Sunday afternoon with Andrew

As most of my FB friends know, I had quite the scare with Andrew on Sunday. Chris is out of town so I am all by myself. Andrew is sitting on the couch and he starts coughing and he does not stop. All he wants is water. So I let him have water and he is still coughing, complaining that his throat hurts. His nose is running. I tried to get him to tell me if he had post nasal drip. He's got allergies like nothing else so he is familiar with that. And he told me no, that it just hurt. And then I notice his ribs. A common word with asthma is retracting and man, this boy was pulling. I could count all his ribs and right at the sternum, it was pulling in where I could have put a ping pong ball in there. So I assume asthma attack and I run and get the nebulizer and some albuterol. Andrew starts to have a hysterical fit. I think because Josh hates it so I told him that Josh only hated it because of the noise. That may or may not be true but it's the least unpleasant thing I could think of.

Breathing treatment is fine. He sits through it. Asks for a couple of breaks. When it's done, he goes and lays on the floor. He is pasty white and sweating. I knew I was supposed to wait 20 minutes to see if the treatment worked but he was so sickly. I told him that we were going to Urgent Care and he started screaming and he ran for his bed and said all he wanted to do was go to bed. This is at 5 oclock in the afternoon. I talk to him and calm him down and got him interested in playing with my Ipod while at the dr's. So he whimpered and said okay. While I am on the phone with my brother asking if he can take the other two kids, Andrew falls asleep with his brothers in the room playing and light on and after a breathing treatment that makes Josh bounce off the walls. So I counted his breaths per minute and they were 20. I had to look up on the internet if that was okay because it seemed so slow. It was great. So I called off Rob and just let Andrew sleep. Talked on the phone with Rob for an hour or so and then went back in to check on him. Still doing great. Had even rolled over.

I called my mom who is out of town. No offense to my mom but she always jumps to the worse case scenario. To her credit, I think it's because she has medical experience so she has seen a lot of stuff. So she points out that something must have caused that and that I need to monitor it through out the night to make sure he doesn't lose consciousness. At this point, I realize that Andrew hasn't had an asthma attack and it was sort of weird that he all of sudden starting coughing and being in respiratory distress. The only thing that I could think of was that he choked on some water from his new water bottle. That's the only thing that I could think of that he did. I am now freaked out. I talk to my mother in law who counteracts the extremist in my mother (again not saying that's a bad thing) and I manage to stop bawling.

So at this point, of all the things in the world that I could google..I google "dry drowning". Big huge story in June 2008 and I guess it stuck with me. Basically you inhale a bunch of water and you drown but it happens anywhere from 1 - 24 hours after you leave the pool. But it can also happen in a bath tub, etc. So the trying to be rational side of me says that he would have needed to inhale like an entire cup full of water. That seems unlikely. When he woke up from his nap (which I now realize I shouldn't have let him take), he was back to his normal self and wanted to play with the Ipod and eat pizza. Everything seemed so fine that it seemed illogical to take him to the ER because I had read articles about dry drowning which is very very rare.

So here's the thing...on one of the articles on dry drowning, Andrew had *every* single symptom. He had difficulty breathing, painful breathing, tightness in chest, persistent cough, mood changes, extreme abnormal lethargy, color changes like pale (or blue but he didn't have that one), sweaty. The fact that he just fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon for no reason is what scares me the most. But his breathing was also terrible. Really terrible. I'm not much for reading the back of bottles for side effects but I don't know what to think about the fact that I randomly googled dry drowning and my son had every single symptom.

I did the only thing that I knew how to do. I assumed asthma and raced to the rescue with a nebulizer. If it was not for that nebulizer, I most certainly would be off to the ER. But that would have taken time. Time that I may or may not have had. Looking back, he was not at the point where he was gasping for air. He was coughing too much for that but he was close to the point where I would have had to call 911. I think he was very close to passing out.. again I see this looking back. Looking back, I think he choked on water (but not necessarily as bad as "dry drowning"), was in respiratory distress and the breathing treatment saved him.

I thank God. Truly thank God for giving me the guidance to do what I needed to help my son. It was scary and I was scared. I was scared when it happened. I was scared when I talked to my mom. I was scared. But I was also praying. Praying hard. Asking my friends to pray..that I do often on FB but I have never stopped to really pray for Josh before heading out to the ER with him. This time, I really prayed. After Andrew woke up, there was still this part of me screaming to take him to the ER. What if he still had water in there? But I had this still small voice that said "Trust Me. Just Trust Me". Was that hard for me? You betcha! But I just had this peace inside of me that my child was not going to die. At this point, some of you are thinking that I am crazy dramatic and that is somewhat true. I am not trying to be crazy dramatic here..oh my goodness, my child almost died. Not trying to say that at all. As scary as it was, it would be a bunch of what ifs to speculate what could have happened. It doesn't matter what could have happened..only what did happen. But as most of you know (I actually have no idea who reads this thing so maybe that's not true), Satan fills me up with fear of my children going to sleep and never waking up again. And this night was no different except that this night, the Lord took all my fears away. This night, I *knew* that my child was not going to die. He was already asleep in my bed but I knew he didn't need to be. I spent the night not worrying about him losing consciousness but rather being woken up by his extremely noisy clacking of his teeth and his talking. Oh my goodness, he talks a lot while sleeping. Andrew is my sweet precious boy and I love him so much. I have always thanked God for all of my children's life for no matter how long he entrusts them to me. God knows that it is the desire of my heart for them to live a long life but God has also given me a peace that He will guide me through all trials of my life even if they are horribly tragic. And the selfish part of me still has fear. I know that. But I also know that my God is bigger than my fear. And my God can take that fear away so I am going to continue to pray. Pray for my children and pray that God will calm my fearful heart and I know that He will bless me with comfort and peace.

One of my favorite verses is Isaiah 41:10
So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.