Thanking My Lucky Stars

AJ made another trip to the ER yesterday.  I'm not really sure what the combination was at any given time, but it was a long seizure together with gastroenteritis (stomach bug).  The two things that made me freak?  I've never seen him vomit with a seizure before and on the first attempt to using his Diastat pen, it was broken.   He's fine.  I know, how can I just say he's fine?

Well, first we had an amazing team at the ER.  Not that we have bad ones, because we never have.  But, this was a good crew.

Second, a Flight for Life case came rolling in while we were there.

And I just can't shake these thoughts out of my mind.

Talk about perspective.

AJ had rolled over to take an impromptu nap, in a foreign place, so I knew he was tired.  I covered him up him up and chatted with my Mom.  As we sat there, someone whisked in front of our room, pulled the curtain across the glass doors as far as it would go and closed our glass doors entirely.  It didn't take long for me to spot the Flight for Life jumpsuits and the yellow stretcher.  There was a small child on it, with an ambu bag and chest compressions being done as they were rolling by.

In that moment, a sense of guilt rolled over me.  How dare I be so freaked out, when my child is sleeping so peacefully and this child is in the next room with 50 people trying to save his/her life.  Yes,  I know I had every right to be freaking out internally, but that type of thing really puts you in perspective.

Let me say that the staff was extremely professional and the scene was nothing like the chaos shown on TV.  They did a great job of keeping everyone calm and "in the dark" if you will.

A few hours later I made my way to the restroom (thinking I really should not know exactly where the restroom is in the ER) and of course, my curiousity was in full force.  There was one pair of shoes in that room, sticking out from the curtain.  Hm.  My mind immediately went to the worst case scenario.

The staff kept coming in apologizing profusely; I didn't care that things were taking longer.  I bit my tongue from asking about the room next store because I knew they wouldn't tell me.

As we left, the room was completely empty, lights off.  The room had been turned over for another use; ready and waiting.

Did the child survive? Where was he or she?  Was the child in surgery?  I've been thinking about this child, his or her family all night.  How unfair life often seems to Jeremy and I in this journey of special needs parenting.  How often we become frustrated that no one "gets it".  All of that disappeared in an instant and I felt incredibly blessed and guilty at the same time that my child was sleeping during his ER visit and was back here at home in his bed.  He was fine.

I just read a post on another blog about a little boy who passed in the middle of the night from a seizure.  He was 4.  FOUR.  This seizure stuff is serious stuff people.  And yes, it scares the crap out of me.  The timing of this post was not the greatest, but who am I to complain?

I'm still thinking about that Flight for Life child, and saying prayers that he or she is well, wherever they might be, and thanking my lucky stars that my child is cooing in his bed so early in the morning.