Return of the Ambulance

Shane gave us another scare today. 911 was called.

Shane took a long nap on Mama's chest. When I got home, I started doing dishes, bottles, and cleaning upstairs to be productive while he slept. One of Carrie's students called, and we decided that three hours was a long enough nap for the boy. He never sleeps that long.

I picked the boy up of Carrie and walked a few steps away and sat down with him. He started choking. His throat sounded really wet and congested, so I thought he may have swallowed wrong. He kept choking. Carrie and I start to get really worried after a few seconds.

I start patting the boy on the back. Shane is making a strangled, half-gasping cough when he tries to inhale. It sounds very strained and odd. He half cries on the exhale, so I know he can breathe at least a little. I lay him on me knee and keep patting. I'm trying to be gentle, but time is passing and he's not sounding better.

Shane scared me once when he had a strip of plastic wrap in his mouth. I start to look in Shane's mouth to see if he's choking on something. I don't know how he would've gotten it in there, but Shane is drooling all over the place. The same thing happened during the first choking scare. I start fishing around in his mouth, but I can't find anything. Carrie suggests maybe he swallowed it, or it's stuck in his throat.

Shane is still struggling to breathe and Carrie and I are starting to panic. She asks if we can make him throw it up. I stick my finger a little deeper down, searching for paper or plastic. Shane gags, but doesn't throw up. He's drooling bucket loads and his whole mouth forms a giant spit bubble at one point.



Carrie calls 911. Shane is still able to breathe, but it's hard. He keeps making the strange coughing, blocked inhale cough/gag. I think I'm in denial at this point. I couldn't believe that we were having an ambulance come to the house twice. I'm afraid for Shane, but I'm embarrassed, almost ashamed that an ambulance had to come look at my child twice in less than a week. It's not rational, but I think that's what I felt. It was definitely different from the gut wrenching terror I felt when I saw Shane fall.

We go upstairs and start to take Shane outside. Carrie says it's too cold and I go back inside to wait. Shane's actually sounding better at this point.  He's still making the cough, but it's much more intermittent and he's breathing steadier. I'm still scared and feeling embarrassed, I'm embarrassed to admit. I'm wondering if we blew it all out of proportion and jumped too quick to call 911. What will the neighbors thing? Will Insurance be charging us thousands of dollars? Should we just have gone to the Urgent Care?

The ambulance arrives and Carrie and I take Shane outside. He stops coughing and starts to sing. Shane's happy to see the ambulance lights again! The head EMT is actually the same guy who visited us on our last scare.

I take Shane in the ambulance and sit down while Carrie helps another EMT get the car seat. My embarrassment/anxiety dies down once I'm sitting in the chair in the ambulance. The EMT starts checking out a happy, singing boy. The first thing he notices: lots and lots of drool. Shane has no fever, his lungs sound fine, and then Carrie and the seat arrive. The EMT (who I really wish I remembered the name of) asks us what happened.

"What did the cough sound like?"

Carrie and I do our best imitations.

The two EMTs share a glance. "That's what we call a barking seal cough. It looks like croup." Apparently, the head EMT had called it before they even left the station. I'm feeling much better at this point with my boy happy, and the EMTs saying "Yeah, it's scary as all hell the first time you hear it and don't know what it is." They then go on to say that the cold air from bringing Shane outside was probably the best thing we could have done for him. From there, we talk for a bit and they give us a choice: we can go for a ride in the ambulance or head out on our own. The emergency had passed.

Carrie looked at me and I choose to go the urgent care. The moment of danger had passed, and the urgent care is right around the corner whereas the hospital is 20 miles away. Plus, I was still feeling residual shame or whatever it was I felt for having to call an ambulance twice. I didn't want to overkill the situation. After being told there was something wrong, I realized the ambulance was the right call, but I just wanted to deescalate the situation.

From there, Shane drank a bottle in the cold air with Dada on the front porch while Mama stuffed the diaper bag. We spent an hour and fifteen minutes or so getting checked out at the Urgent Care. The doctor didn't find anything that alarmed him, told us it was viral if it was anything, and sent us home. A little online research filled in Carrie and I's knowledge gaps. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001955/  I admit, I read the whole thing, but I made a few mental notes under the "When to call 911" section. Stridor (trouble breathing) and drooling were both in the "get help fast" section.

Shane's sleeping safely and soundly now. We picked up a new humidifier to help. Hopefully, today was the only time we're going to have an episode like we did. Being a parent has definitely caused me to grow in ways I didn't imagine. I've been in an ambulance with my son twice in under a week and I haven't missed a day at work. Shane's resilient and moves on, so Carrie and I just have to keep up.

A bonus side story: 
When I called Nana to tell her about what happened, she told me that she went to the hospital with croup as a baby. She had to stay in an oxygen tent overnight. Jama and Papa had been about to sign on the dotted line to adopt a little redheaded boy when she got sick. Jama found the whole situation so traumatic that she and Papa decided not to go through with adoption. I might have had another uncle if not for the croup.