The first week in December started out pretty normal. Chris had to go out of town for work and I started our normal routine for the week. Park went to school on Monday, on Tuesday the kids went over to the Markhams house so I could make it to a meeting at the office. After my meeting, I picked up the kids and headed back home to wait for daddy to get home! When Chris got home we were all super excited to see him! He scooped up Caroline when he walked in the door and noticed that something was a little "off". I had noticed that her breathing was a bit labored when she woke up from her nap, but hadn't really given it much thought. I thought she just needed to cough and it'd go away. She had had some spells over the past few days where she would sound like she was breathing hard, then it would go away. Well, it wasn't going away. We kept an eye/ear out for it the rest of the evening, counted her breaths per minute and they were way higher than they should be. I had a HUGE meeting at work starting the next day. A meeting where all our managers from all over the nation were flying in and I was basically in charge of all the little details from start to finish! Whew! I had a feeling I may not be going into work the next day, so after we put the kids to bed I started working. I'd go in and check on Caroline every 30 minutes or so. I finished up working around 3:00 AM and went to check on Caroline again. She was BURNING UP! I took her temp and it was over 103... let the freak out begin! After lots of water and some Tylenol, she fell back asleep and I got in bed and maybe got 1-2 hours of sleep between waking up every 30 minutes or so to check on Caroline. She woke up with the same breathing issues and a low-grade fever so we called the doctor immediately and headed in as soon as they opened. I just figured she had RSV (Park had it several times as a baby), we'd get a nebulizer machine, and we'd be on our way. The doctor's didn't seem too concerned just by looking at her. Yes - she was wheezing a little bit, but not as bad as the night before. She would not eat anything though - and wasn't interesting in drinking so they were a little concerned with that. The nurse came in to check her O2 levels and they were dangerously low. She was sure the machine was just not working right and left to go get another one. While she went to get another one, Dr. Halloran came in and talked to us for awhile. She was concerned with the congestion in her chest but was sure that after a few breathing treatments she'd be fine. By this point, we had been there for more than an hour and Parker was getting ancy! Thank goodness they had a DVD player (with headphones!) for him to use! That was a life saver because he was already bored with my phone and I kept having to take it away from him to text our friends, family and Chris with my concerns and prayer requests. We did a breathing treatment with the nebulizer and re-checked her O2 levels. They were NOT any better. The doctors and nurses were baffled... they said that with her O2 levels at 85, she would not be acting as normal as she was. They said she actually shouldn't have really even been able to lift her head or open her eyes! I knew that God has his hands on my sweet baby and just continued to pray and shoot out prayer requests to everyone. When they suggested another breathing treatment to get her O2 levels up, Chris showed up to help me. What a mess.
This was right after a breathing treatment and Parker was very concerned for his baby sister. She screamed through the entire first treatment and he just wanted to hold her and kiss her. So sweet.
When Chris got there to help me, I let him do the rest of the second treatment... I was spent and my arms were killing me from restraining her in my lap for so long! Since her O2 levels still didn't come up after the second treatment, they decided to put her on O2 with a tube in her nose. You can imagine she just loved that... right. I was starting to go into a little bit of shock... I just kept thinking, "We just came in because we thought she had a bad cold!!!! What is wrong with my baby!!!"
She finally fell asleep in my arms and we were able to talk to the doctor more about what our next steps were. We obviously needed more help to get her O2 levels up. We needed to go down to Children's Healthcare at Scottish Rite... OK... I was OK with that. We are so blessed to live so close to CHOA - everyone goes there when their kids are ill... not big deal. After a few minutes of more tests on sweet Caroline, we realized the only way her O2 levels would stay at where they needed to be, was if she was hooked up to O2. This meant we needed to be transported via ambulance. OK - Mommy Freakout Begins! Mommy freakout continued when they told me I wouldn't be able to ride in the back of the ambulance with her. Awesome. Chris left to take Parker to my sister's house. Thank our sweet Lord that my sister lives nearby. I know I have tons of friends who would have helped us and I depend on my friends a lot and for a lot... but I had a feeling we'd be gone for awhile and knowing Parker would be with family the whole time gave me a huge peace... and allowed me to focus all my attention on my baby girl.
We waited for another hour or so for the ambulance so we tried to keep Caroline occupied with pictures on the wall!
When the ambulance finally showed up, I seriously got this calm feeling. I KNEW and could FEEL my family and friends praying for me. What an amazing feeling. I was suddenly composed. I was not freaking out. My heart wasn't racing. I was just OK. It was freakishly weird. But it was amazing. I have never felt that sense of prayer on me before while going through such a tragic series of events. They had to put her on the stretcher in the doctor's office and she was so cute. She didn't start crying until they took her away from me and put her in the back of the truck. Still... I was amazing calm. It was such a life-changing experience... what I experienced in those moments.. in those days. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to truly explain it.
An un-prayed for mommy would NOT have been able to handle this... I. Was. Fine.
Well, they broke the news to us on the way to the hospital that CHOA was over-booked. The ER and the hospital beds. Great. We had to wait about 20 minutes with the ambulance staff in the middle of the ER for a room. Ha - the first room they were going to put us in - they quickly detoured us from and we heard the custodial staff say that the kid in their before had e-coli and the room needed to be deep sanitized before anyone else went in! Ha! So glad we dodged that bullet! We got into our ER room in the late afternoon. Her O2 levels still weren't great even with the tube in. We got her to eat a cereal bar and some juice and we tried to keep her still! Not an easy feat.
We even wore our hairbow in the ER... gotta be a lady y'all!
We saw the doctor a few times. They took her back for XRays to make sure she didn't have pneumonia (she didn't! but she did have bronchiolitis) and they let us know that we would be staying in the hospital for a day - possibly 2-3. They told us that someone else in the ER who was admitted to the hospital the day before waited in the ER for almost 24 hours before they had an open room for them! Yikes! We only ended up waiting about 2-3 hours and they said they had an overflow room for us. OK - great! Off we went! They had crib that looked like baby jail for us and a chair for me to sleep in. I sighed and knew it was going to be another long night. Remember... I hadn't slept for more than a few hours since 2 nights before! I SHOULD have been a wreck! I wasn't. I felt strong. I felt OK. Seriously amazing - the power of prayer!
Here's daddy and C-line checking out her new digs!
Eh - she wasn't so thrilled when she realized this was where she'd be staying!
We were happy to be out of the ER, though!
Chris went home since there was no room for him in our closet-sized hospital room. I basically sat up in the chair all night and would jump up every time her O2 monitor would go off... which was about every 15 minutes. About every 90 minutes someone new was coming into the room to do treatments and to check on her which made the night fly by.
The next morning started around 6 AM when my sweet neighbor, Jennifer, who is an ER nurse at CHOA stopped by with some Starbucks coffee for me (HALLELUIAH!) and a bag of clothes and other essentials Chris had packed for me at home. You could tell sweet Caroline still wasn't feeling so great. She didn't sleep too well either thanks to the beeping machines.
We ordered a big breakfast for her (and me!) and she seemed to perk up a bit.
They had endless cartoon channels there so those seemed to keep her occupied for a little bit.
Eating her breakfast! She finally had an appetite so I knew that was a good sign!
And THANK GOODNESS soon after breakfast, my mommy showed up! I'm not too sure what I'd do without my mom! She's ALWAYS there in a heartbeat whenever we need her. It was a lifesaver having her there to just help me keep Caroline occupied in a room where she couldn't get on the floor, crawl around or really do anything except hang out in her jail crib or be held. While my mom went to find us some lunch, our preschool pastor from our church came by to see us! We were so surprised but so thankful for her visit. Ms. Edna is such a sweetheart and has such a heart for kids. We are so thankful to have both our kids under her care every week. She prayed for Caroline and I immediately felt better when she left.
In the late afternoon, after numerous breathing treatments and lots of suctioning, her O2 levels were staying above 92 (easily!) so we got to take the O2 tubes out of her nose! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!! We knew we had to stay at least one other night because our O2 lowers when we sleep... so our final test was how she would do at night! I truly felt so blessed to only be dealing with a baby with bronchiolitis while there! That hospital was CHALK-FULL of really sick babies and kids - most much sicker than Caroline. I just kept praising God for our healthy baby girl and for the entire experience we were going through. I knew that this hospital visit was going to be an amazing part of my testimony and if we were going through this experience only to possibly bring others closer to Jesus one day then it was 100% worth it.
Here is one of her many respiratory therapists checking on her... he felt good about her progress so far!
That night, my sweet, sweet friends surprised us with all these gifts! Kristin was the only one able to actually come see us on behalf of everyone, but she brought Caroline flowers, a balloon and a stuffed lion (because Caroline's cute and cuddly just like the lion but also very brave and strong like the lion!) Kristin also stopped by our house (despite her fear of our dog!) and got a big bag of toys for Caroline. This was a huge life saver! Keep in mind we were still in our "over flow" room so we didn't have any of the usual perks of being on the regular patient floor of the hospital and in a normal room. I felt much better after Kristin's visit! I felt refreshed again and was so thankful to have the friends I do. I was so thankful our sweet friend overcame her HUGE fear of hospitals to come make me and C-Line feel a little better!
Like I said, that evening was our test! Well, you can imagine my excitement when her O2 levels stayed between 92-98 all night! Yay!
When we "woke up" (I still didn't sleep!) we watched some more toons and waited for the nurses and doctors to come in!
Caroline loved playing with her balloon!
They unhooked her from all the tubes that morning and after playing with some toys in her crib, she zonked out! We got word from the doctor around lunchtime that we could go home! My mom had left the night before to go up to Whit's house to be with Parker and she came back down that morning to help me pack everything up and drive us home.
And this, my friends, is what PURE exhaustion looks like! I'm not sure I've ever looked this horrible! HA! I thought it was worth documenting!
Here are some pictures of our closet-like room! Her jail crib on one wall.
My chair/bed on the other.
And all the medical equipment in the middle. THAT'S ALL Y'ALL!
We were so happy to be home! My mom stayed with us for another night and day and helped me get back on my feet. I surprisingly had a hard time resting once we got home. My body was still running off of adrenaline... but I eventually got caught up on sleep and was able to feel back to normal by our second day home. Our amazing friends brought us meals every night through the weekend... we were so spoiled! Parker had to sing at church on that Sunday, but we had been ordered not to take Caroline anywhere (especially church nursery!) for at least a month if possible... so Aunt Whitney came to the rescue and offered to come to our house and stay with Caroline so we could go to church with Parker! We seriously have the most amazing family and friends environment where we live. We are so blessed.
Everyone was happy mommy and Caroline were home! I'm writing this post more than a month after this happened and Parker STILL talks about how worried he was for Caroline and mommy and he tells me how much he missed us while we were gone. :) Caroline would get random fevers the next week or so and would get congested every day at least once, but after an inhaler puff she was good to go! By day 5-6 she was completely off the breathing treatments and you would have never guessed she was so sick a few days before!
Thank you to everyone who prayed for us those few days!
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