Ambulance Ride

Gracie strapped into her car seat and strapped to a gurney in the back the of ambulance.

Well, we had a very eventful night last night. Gracie had been coming down with a slight cold for the last couple of days. She was coughing and sneezing but not much more. I put her down to bed and then heard her choking on the baby monitor. I ran in to check on her and confirmed that she did throw up like she always does, but this time, she looked TERRIBLE. She was white with red eyes and dark purple lips and could not catch her breath. Her eyes were starting to roll to the back of her head. She was struggling with trying to clear her throat and nose from throwing up, but she just couldn't do it this time with the combination of her being sick. I panicked, picked her up and started patting her back really hard trying to get her to shake out of it. But she just wasn't. I yelled for my son to get the phone and call my husband (who was still at work), which turned to asking him to call 911, which turned into me yelling for the phone and calling 911 myself. I told the dispatcher that I had a baby with a heart defect who was struggling to breathe after throwing up. She stayed with me on the phone until the police officer arrived. During the next few minutes, Gracie started to come around. When the officer got there he noticed that she looked very blue. At this point the whole event had completely exhausted Gracie and she was just laying in my arms with her eyes shut. The officer said after these types of episodes that the kiddos completely conk out because of exhaustion. We waited maybe another 6 minutes for the Paramedics to show up and she gradually started to pink back up. The Paramedics arrived and got all of her vitals and everything and said that she would need to be checked out at Primary Childrens to make sure she did not aspirate into her lungs which would cause pneumonia. They said they could transport her there. So instead of driving myself (which they said they didn't want me to do because if Gracie started having another episode, they didn't want us driving off into a ditch because of my distraction!) Also, I didn't want to sit in the ER for 6 hours with all the other 'sickies' coughing on her until they got us a room.

So off we went in the ambulance to the hospital!! My nice neighbor Kendall took my kids to her house while I got to ride next to Gracie in the back of the ambulance. (At this point I was calling my husband OVER and OVER and could not get in contact with him!!!!) When we got to the hospital, they admitted us directly to a room. My husband finally got the message and met me at the hospital. We were there for about 2 1/2 hours while they checked everything out. It turned out that her x-rays, saturation levels, blood pressure etc. looked pretty good. They did a rapid test for RSV which came back negative and they let us go home. We got home around 1:00 in the morning. What a night!! Gracie seemed glad to be home and slept like a log. We are glad things turned out well and are thankful for all the people who helped in her care last night. We hope she gets better in time for her surgery! Thanks for all of your prayers for our Gracie Girl!