So far away
Update early sunday. Doing better. The past three days everything I have done has been shadowed with worry because my 4 year-old Goober is in the hospital with another severe asthma attack.
I come from a long line of grandma's who "take in worrying for a living." (A quote from my late mother.) However, this is more.
When Goober was not quite three, I tag teamed with my daughter Jen through a weekend in Intensive Care. I know what it is like to watch a small child's stomach muscles contract in desperate attempt to expand the diaphragm and pull air into the lungs. I remember the plea's of help that came only from her eyes because the rest of her body has relinquished control to allow all energy to focus on one more breath.
Then came the relief I felt when her first little smile begat a sweet request for a drink of water.
Last night my brother Tom called to check on Goober's progress. He shared some memories of his own asthmatic childhood. Our parents would often wrap him in a blanket formed into a tent over steaming hot water. He recalls receiving his first shot of epinephrine sometime in the late 1940's.
After our conversation ended, I thought of the asthmatic children in the past with lives cut short and of children in the present who have poor or no access to medical care in third world countries.
So, on this early Saturday morning, unable to rest, I woke with Goober on my heart and a prayer on my lips: for her, for other babies who share her affliction, and for their grandmas.
It was also a prayer of thanks.
I am thankful for Hospitals. I'm thankful for ER Doctors and for Pulmonologists. I'm thankful for Respiratory Therapists, for Nurses, and for all the other technicians. I'm thankful for the cooks, the custodians, the guards and the volunteers.
I'm so far away. Those people are there.
Comments
Asthma is a frightening disease. My 5 year old son, Golden Boy, contracted a viral form of pneumonia last year. I took him into the pediatrician's office because he seemed to be breathing rapidly. When we were waiting to be seen, suddenly he turned blue. He couldn't take in a breath at all! Tears welled up in his eyes and he looked at me and I couldn't do a thing! I was completely helpless. Praise God the nurse came in at that moment and saw him, ran to get a nebulizer and he was breathing again in less than a minute. I shudder at the thought of what could have happened if we were at home.
We now know that he has a "reactive airway" form of asthma. It's triggered by illness. And we now own a nebulizer.
I feel for Jen and Goober right now - and you, too. Modern medicine is truly a miracle, isn't it?
(((((HUGS)))))
It breaks my heart to think of her struggling for breath. Sorry to hear that. My mother and little sister have asthma and, when I was younger, my father smoked in the house. He'd get annoyed when I complained about the thick smoke in the kitchen. God, I was smoking quite a bit at that age, I guess.
I'll say a prayer for you all.
Goobs will be home soon. I just know it.
I have prayed for her and hope that she comes home.
It's a tough time of year to be so sick, bless her heart...
((hugs))
I am thinking of you and your "goober".