Spring Break, a Mothers Perspective

April 2003 was a beautiful month, this was my 1ST year of college working on my nursing prerequisites and life was going well. Well of course being a relevant term, we were in bankruptcy, MIL living with us along with a few others relatives made life a little stressful. We also had three children at the time. Our oldest daughter was 2 ½ years old, and the twins (identical girls) were 1 ½ years old. We had spent a rough winter with the girls catching colds more often since they started day care that fall, and a series of UTI’s that kept us running to the Dr’s office. Even though times were tough for us, I was still pulling very good grades and we were looking forward to my first Spring Break.

Two weeks prior to break one of the twins started coming down with what I guessed was the flu. All of us had come down with it but it hit her the hardest. We checked temperatures, checked on her throughout the night every night, treated fevers that never seemed to come down, and when I would take her to the Dr’s office they would tell me to keep doing what we were already doing, and as always, come back tomorrow if things weren’t better. We had been told before when the girls were getting UTI’s (due to urinary reflux) to stop taking them to the ER so much even though they had fevers of 105, so I did my best to use the pediatrician’s office, against my gut instincts. She then started to become listless, lying on the floor, not eating much, and not even really crying.

I finally took action and took her to the ER, and one look by the triage nurse of me carrying my limp little girl just made her face drop. Immediately we were brought back, her heart rate was in the 180’s, respiratory rate in the 80’s, and her SPO2 was in the 70’s. Quickly she was put on blow-by oxygen which brought it up to low 90’s, but any time I wasn’t careful to hold it directly to her face it would drop again making her alarms sound. We waited an eternity it seemed for results.

If there were a spectrum of motherhood, I felt as though I found the bottom rung, and I’m sure the health professionals there that day did too. Another mother whose son was there for appendicitis took pity on me after I made a comment that I didn’t have money for food for myself, and gave me $20. I think that was the 1st time I allowed myself to cry for 2 weeks because someone showed kindness. It was about that time I called my husband, who asked “does she really need to be there?” I could have murdered him that day, but kept my cool as best I could.

Her chest x-ray when shown to me by the Dr. was nothing less than horrifying. Her left lung was one big white spot, not a clear place anywhere, and the right side was starting to white over as well. I truly thought she might die, I thought, how someone so small ever comes back from THAT!

It was explained to me that she was going to need a chest tube to drain fluid from around her lung. It was late by the time they started that, about 7pm, and I still had nothing to eat that day because I couldn’t leave her side. As they started her procedure, her pediatrician walked up and I lost control of myself and walked out of the procedure room. I think I could have slugged her, SHE was the one who evaluated her the day prior saying to keep doing what we were doing, SHE was the one who listened to her lungs and told us to go back home. Now my daughter lay on a table, with strangers, drugged and barely breathing, waiting to be cut open and have a tube thrust in her chest. The room began to spin out of control, I couldn’t even speak to her as she was trying to console me because I was so overwhelmed. Thank God my husband finally came in and was able to set me straight again so I could focus on our daughter.

She spent spring break in the hospital, and had awesome residents and nurses who helped her turn the corner. She was discharged with a PICC line was sent home for 1 ½ months of IV antibiotics. Now has caught back up to her twin and all she has to show for it is two small scars, one for chest tube and one for the PICC line. I am thankful for each of my children every day. She now wants to be a Marine Biologist, but I’ll get to worry about that one later.