As a parent you hear all the stories of all the horrors of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) or Cot Death in some parts of the world. How it can happen to anyone and things you can do to prevent it. Things such as not smoking around the baby even when it is still in the womb and having the baby sleep in the same bed as it's parents.
I have also heard about the bond a parent has with their infant and the extrasensory perception (ESP) or 6th sense that they develop as the child grows. Well that is where my story begins, but a little background first.
My wife and I are non-smokers and do not hang around with smokers, which according to research smoking is a major contributing factor to SIDS. The only thing that my son has been to the doctor for, other than well baby visits, were minor ear infections.
My Story
About a Week earlier...
My Wife, Son, and Myself are headed to Kansas City area to see family, about a 3 hour drive for us. We left our dogs at my Sister's house since we were staying overnight. Well about an hour after we left her house she calls my mother, crying, saying one of my dogs, Lily, escaped from her house. Bear with me this ties in, sort of. She cannot catch her and runs away when she sees them looking at her. I call her and calm her down and tell her that my dog is smart and will be OK. I think to myself "What a way to start the weekend. About an hour in and we've already lost a dog."
Continuing on to Kansas City we get there as expected, without further incident. We enjoy good food, family, and fireworks. Since my son is only 9 months old many of them have not seen him yet and I had not seen my Cousins Daughter that they had adopted about 3 years earlier. We had fun and were tired and ready to go to bed at my Uncles House.
The plan was to get up about 6:00am and go have breakfast with my uncles and aunts around 8:00am before we started the long drive home to search for Lily, our missing dog. My son usually wakes up like clockwork at 5:00am, but not this morning...he wakes up at about 7:30am and my uncle didn't want to wake us since he has a new Great-Grand Son about the same age and decided to let us sleep. So we missed saying good bye to everyone before they went to church. No big deal..."Tell everyone we had fun and enjoyed seeing them. We need to do this again sometime." I tell my aunt and uncle.
We start the long journey back home and stop by my sister's house to see if we can find Lily and pick up our other dog Rose, and no we did not name them flowers on purpose. It had stormed about 1:00am that night and she is an inside dog. We searched for about an hour literally driving all over the town, it's population is about 1000. with my Sister's fiancé helping look in his truck. No luck, we gave up and decided that she was smart and might have tried heading home since she is scared of storms. So we posted signs, craigslist ads, and put the word out to law enforcement about the missing dog. I am thinking "Great we lost the dog, but she should turn up tomorrow."
The following day my sons eyes were runny and one had actually dried shut from mucus. To the doctor we went. The doctor told us that he has had an allergic reaction and has a sinus infection. He prescribes an antihistamine, an antibiotic, and ibuprofen for the fever. All is going well for the first day. Then my son starts getting diarrhea, and throwing up about 2-3 times a day, but is keeping enough down that we don't think he needs another doctor's visit. After about 2 days and 15 loads of laundry later we take him to urgent care. The doctor there tells us that the antibiotic he is on is hard on his stomach. We got a new prescription for a different antibiotic and the dosage is much better for an infant, 2mg instead of 4mg makes a huge difference. Now that we have the throwing up and diarrhea under control we just have a small fever to get down. That evening we take his temperature with an ear thermometer and his temperature is back to normal.
He has been acting like he isn't sick at all the whole day and since his temperature is back to normal we decided he needed sleep to get better. We go through the normal ritual of getting my son to sleep. This entails him fighting for about 45min to an hour of us walking him around the room or rocking him while standing. Finally, he looses the fight as he does every night with sleep. We are glad that he has finally went to sleep, at about 7:30pm which means we get to eat then go to sleep too.
We make dinner and watch TV for a little while then go to bed at about 10:30pm. I check on my son and kiss him good night, he is sleeping soundly as always.
Now this is where many people can speculate what happened to alert me to something not being right...
I woke up to use the bathroom at 2:09am, feeling like I had slept all night. I thought it was strange that my little boy had not woken up needing food yet, usually about 6 hours after going to bed. I get back into bed...I lay there thinking I should go check on him. I think he needs his sleep he has had a rough week and is wore out and healing. Finally I decide that I didn't care if I woke him up checking on him just for piece of mind and he was going to get up soon to eat anyway.
I walk across the house to his room, we have a baby monitor. I walk in thinking he is sleeping really good, I didn't hear his normal snoring or loud breathing. I leave the light off, as usual, to check on him. I get over to his bed and put my hand on his stomach to feel him breathing. His stomach and chest weren't moving!!! I hold my hand there for about 2-3 seconds incase he is just breathing really shallow...NOTHING!!!!!!!!!! I shake him to try and wake him!!! NOTHING!!!!!!!!!! I pick him up he feels a little stiff, I think to myself "OH NO!!! Rigor has set in my little boy is dead." I lift him up gently shaking him like I were playing with him to hopefully get him to wake up or breathe I say "Alex. Wake up!! Come on breathe!!! ALEX!!!". I put my mouth over his mouth and nose and breathed a little air into his lungs... By that time my wife come rushing into the room and asks what's wrong I tell her that he isn't breathing. Then she started "OH GOD ALEX!! WAKE UP HONEY!!" I try another breath!!! He coughed!!! HE COUGHED!!! Could his allergies have caused mucus to block his airway?! I know I had allergies once and I woke up in a panic because I could barely breathe. Is this what happened to my son?
By the way I have been adult and child CPR certified when I worked at a mental health care facility for 2 years. All that training goes out the window when it is your own kid.
Alex started crying weakly. "Thank God my little boy is alive!!" I say a quick prayer asking God for Alex to not have any brain damage or other problems. I held him close making sure he didn't go back to sleep.
We get dressed and rush to the Emergency Room at about 2:25am. We get checked in, Alex gets his vitals taken, then we wait....and wait...and wait a little longer. Finally, at about 4:30 or 5:00am we are taken back to an examination room. Alex's vitals are taken again. We wait again...and wait some more. Finally shift change at the nurses station. A new nurse comes in at 6:00am and checks his vitals again saying that a doctor will be with us at about 7:00am. I am tired, worried sick, and a little irritated. I ask, I think politely, "If we have to wait until 7:00am to see a doctor can we just go to Convenient Care" this is like a walk in Dr. office "and not get charged the Emergency Room fees?" She says "no you have already been processed here". I tell her no matter, what is another hour of waiting. We are almost out of diapers in the diaper bag at this point.
Finally at 6:45am a Doctor shows up!!! He checks Alex's breathing and asks a few questions. One that I didn't even think of checking when I discovered Alex wasn't breathing. Was he blue? Were his lips blue? My response was "I don't know the lights were out." I doubt I would have turned on the lights if I had to go through that nightmare again. To me that is precious time lost.
The doctor tells us that everything looks OK, but due to this last week with the allergies, and throwing up he wanted to do an X-Ray to be sure there was no pneumonia in his lungs. My poor son. to get the X-Ray he had to be put into this contraption that basically stood him up with his arms over his head and held him there with a Plexiglas clamshell.
Two X-Rays later we were done. Alex was glad to be out of that contraption and in daddy's arms. We go back to the room and wait for the doctor to look at the results. He comes in and tells us that he has a little pneumonia in his right lung, but not serious enough to be hospitalized for since the medicine he is on is as strong as the IV that they would have administered.
We had to go to our regular doctor the following week to make sure everything was back to normal. The doctor said that everything should be cleared up by the time he finishes his antibiotic.
After proofreading this I noticed I downplayed my Wife's role is all of this. I couldn't have gotten through this without her. She is always the one remembering all the little details like: Diaper rash cream, which he had a bad rash from all the diarrhea. Extra clothes, and diapers not to mention bottles and water for formula.
I must thank my wife for staying home all week with a sick baby that wanted to be held all the time even though she had a repetitive stress injury to her wrist from carrying around Alex. She would get puked on multiple times a day, and every diaper change was a nasty endeavor since all he seemed to do while he was sick was poop. I would have traded with her, but I work for a small business that has two locations and three employees.
To my wife. I love you and all the things you put up with from myself and Alex.
Also another Good note. I got a call this morning from a gentleman saying he had my missing dog, Lily, who had been gone for a week. Apparently she walked north, the wrong direction to home, about 15 miles. She is now at home acting like she had never been lost. Granted she is a little skinnier than before, but not in bad shape for being an inside dog that went on a survival adventure for a solid week.
All I have to say is WHAT A CRAZY WEEK!!! Thank God that everything ended happily. I have a healthy son to tickle and a hyper dog to play fetch with, not to mention, a beautiful wife that claims she isn't perfect, but I disagree. Life just doesn't get better than this.
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