My little Peanut, Isaac!

Wow… I’m not sure how to start. It’s been quite a week. Our ranch trip was great. Awesome, in fact, but it ended with an ambulance ride to Primary Children’s hospital. Yup, that’s right. Me and Isaac just spent two days in the hospital. It was a great way to spend Friday the 13th.

Okay, so you want to hear about it…

It all began Monday night when I was unpacking our things only to repack for the ranch trip. Jer was home from work and was helping me watch the kids while I shoveled clothes back in to our bags. Isaac came across an open packet of Southwest peanuts and started shoving them into his mouth. We took the package away and he started coughing and gagging. It was the worst gagging I’d ever heard from the little boy. I was just about to do the Heimlich when he stopped and was breathing just fine. He seemed to have a little rasp in his throat and we thought all that gagging and coughing had scratch up his throat. We gave him a class of water and continued on with things.

On Tuesday, the kids and I headed up to Kingfisher Bend Ranch, 20 miles south of Evanston WY, to meet my family for the week. It was a beautiful, quiet place. We did nothing but ride horses every day, swim in the river and pond, do a little fishing and play rumicube (spelling ?) all night long. It was nice and relaxing (besides having to limp everywhere! Horse back riding was the perfect activity for me.)

On Wednesday, Isaac started to cough a little bit and that night he wouldn’t stop. I laid there listening to him wondering what was wrong. It sounded really weird. I almost wrapped him up in a blanket to take him outside in the cold air because the only thing I could think of was croup but it wasn’t right. The cough wasn’t tight and phlegmy sounding.

Thursday morning we all sat around talking about it and trying to figure it out. We’d listen to his back to see if it was bronchitis or something but his lungs didn’t crackle. I mentioned the peanut but no one could figure out how a scratched throat could turn into this. We were all pretty confused. Later in the afternoon, Isaac started to get a fever. We gave him tylenol and he was pretty much a lap puppy for the rest of the day and he took a couple naps.

Thursday evening Jer and I went on a sunset horse back ride. We left Isaac with my parents and when we got back my parents looked terrified. They told us that Isaac needed to go to the emergency room. I hate to admit it but I thought they were overacting. The truth is they had watched him go down hill while we were gone. I thought he was just tired because he quickly went to sleep. When it was time for us to go to bed Jer came to me and said come listen to Isaac. We went in the bed room and listened to him panting in his sleep. His breathe was so fast and then he’d pause. Please breathe! Needless to say, we scooped him up, said a prayer, and jumped in the car. It was the longest 20 miles I’ve ever driven. We were totally silent. We sat there praying and listening to him breathe.

Please keep breathing…

When we arrived at the Evanston hospital we said that he had a fever and was panting. They walked us to a room and calmly weighed him and asked us questions. The nurse was not alarmed at all. She took us to another room where we waited for the Dr. He came and checked him out, gave him Tylenol, and told us to keep him hydrated. We asked him if the peanut had anything to do with it and he said no. The time scale was wrong and he’d be a lot sicker if he had aspirated the peanut. He said that the panting was from his high fever. We waited. The fever came down a little bit but the panting was still present. His pulse was high and his oxygen level was low. We went and took and X ray. He had right side pneumonia.

They decided to send us to Primary Children’s because we weren’t local and recommended we rode the ambulance. Okay. The paramedics were wearing wranglers.

At Children’s there was more waiting. It was 4 AM. We were so tired and just wanted to sleep. We finally were seen. Jer decided to tell the peanut story again. WHAT! We finally got some interest. Okay, so I guess it is way common for babies to aspirate small things like peanuts and it can just reside in the lungs with out giving much sign. We couldn’t believe it. Was that for real? After that we were seen by some ear nose throat Dr’s and they said they’d squeeze us in for surgery in the morning. They were so sure that the story of him choking on the peanut was the answer.

So we waited and waited. ALL DAY! Isaac slept in our laps most the time. We couldn’t feed him at all and he was hooked up to all the cords. Finally around 5 PM they took him in for surgery. Only a half and hour later the Dr came back and said everything went well and showed us THE PEANUT!!!!!!

I had to laugh because I was going to cry. I could have kissed that Dr. I have never in my life been so grateful for a Doc. He told us how lucky Isaac was because the peanut was in their for 4 days and was still in one piece. It was blocking his right lung and was all infected. His right lung had collapsed and the oils irritate the lungs. Also, if he’d had coughed it up it could have get stuck in the vocal cords and blocked his airway. Awwwwww. How scary!! I had never heard of anyone inhaling a foreign object in to their lungs let alone still running around like nothing was wrong.

All of my emotions burst out after the Dr left.

Isaac bounced back so fast. We had a good night rest and the next day he was all over the place pulling out his IV and wanting to walk around further then his leash of cords would let him. If you looked at him you’d never know that he’d just been in surgery and had been so sick besides a mild PRODUCTIVE cough. A cough has never sounded like music to my ears before.

Oh, my dear sweet Buddy. I love you Isaac!!!

ps. Please don’t hammer me for being a stupid mom. I feel bad enough as it is.