The Saturday before Thanksgiving, Laura climbed on top of the counter next to the fridge and got into my purse. She discovered the small container I keep OTC meds in and ate most of the Imodium pills and a few allergy pills. Both Rob and I thought Imodium was similar to tums and although we got upset that she had been able to get into them and no one had noticed, we didn't worry much about it.
Betsy had a math test the following week that I told her I would help her study for. Laura asked to come, so I took her along. It was Laura's naptime, so I wasn't surprised that she fell asleep shortly after we got to Betsy's house. I was a bit surprised that she was still asleep five hours later when Betsy and I finished. It was also a bit odd that she kept falling back asleep again when I picked her up, carried her to the car, and put her in her car seat. Usually once something wakes Laura up, she is up for good, even if she's only been asleep for a few minutes.
Laura asked me to take a picture of her on the way over to Betsy's house -
Rob and I were supposed to go on a date that night, so he was making sure the kids were bathed and had eaten dinner when I got home. I tried to have Laura eat something, but she kept falling asleep on my lap. At that point, we started wondering if something was wrong. Rob took her upstairs to give her a bath and I decided to call poison control just to check and see if the allergy pills might affect her like this.
Poison control asked how many of each pill she had eaten. I hadn't added them up and was surprised to realize that she had probably eaten about 40 Imodium pills. I kept them in the small pill container specifically so I wouldn't have many in my purse. They are small enough that a lot fit in those small containers. The lady from poison control told me it wasn't the allergy pills she was worried about - it was the Imodium. We needed to get Laura to the closest ER ASAP; we didn't even have time to drive her to Cooks in Fort Worth.
I ran upstairs and grabbed her out of the bath. Rob tried to quickly grab anything we'd need as I buckled her up. She threw up. I yelled to Rob that we were leaving. As we drove to the hospital, I tried contacting Christy or Susie or Betsy to watch the other five kids. Christy texted back that she would be right there and not to worry about them.
(I found out later that she and Dan were walking into a holiday party and she turned around and walked out when she got my text and they spent their evening taking care of our kids instead. I am so grateful for a friend and sister like her. She is always there when I need her and that means so much to me.)
At the ER, we were told that Imodium is actually an opiate, and considering how many Laura ate, it was significantly affecting her body by slowing down each system - including her lungs. They put in an IV and gave her a dose of Narcan, a medication used for drug overdoses. It pulls people out of drug induced comas in minutes, but it sends them to the opposite extreme. Within a minute of the small dose they gave her, Laura was awake and crying.
She settled back down again and we were told they were sending us by ambulance to Cooks (the children's hospital). Rob ran home while we were waiting for the ambulance and grabbed things like a cell phone charger. He made it back as they were moving her into the ambulance, then he headed home to spend the night with the other five kids. I rode in the ambulance with Laura.
Laura and I waited in Cooks ER for an hour or so until they had a room for her. She seemed much better after getting the bag of IV fluids in the ambulance.
When we got up to the room, they hooked her up to all sorts of monitors. Laura is not big for her age - she is 25 pounds and looks very delicate. She looked even tinier in the middle of her huge bed with wires coming out everywhere. They monitored her breathing to see if she started struggling again. One of the nurses turned on "Frozen" for her - that is her very favorite movie.
She finally fell asleep around midnight. The nurses came in and sat with Laura and sent me down to the cafeteria to eat something since I hadn't eaten since lunchtime.
A children's hospital is a horrible place to be. Children should not be sick enough to be in a hospital. I looked around the cafeteria and saw all the other parents, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, hair unbrushed, clothes wrinkled, looking lost and trying not to fall apart. I have so much respect for people who work there. I couldn't do it.
Not long after I got back, her breathing slowed down again. They had told me that she'd be in trouble if it dropped below 12 breaths per minute. Several times the alarms went off signalling that it had reached that. The room would fill with nurses and they'd wake her up and try to get her breathing again. An hour or two later, it dropped to 8-9 breaths per minute and I overheard the doctor in the hall tell the nurse to go get more Narcan. The nurse asked "0.5?". He said "No. Two." Shocked, she verified the amount. I'm guessing it is a much higher dose than they usually give 25 pound babies.
It took a minute to get into her system, then she was up and screaming and writhing in pain. She kept screaming and screaming. I climbed into the bed with her and held her. We turned on a movie with images of kittens set to classical music and I stroked her hair as she screamed for what felt like hours. She finally fell asleep and I drifted off.
She woke up a few hours later, around 6am, perky and bouncy and cheerful. The Imodium was finally completely out of her system. I called Rob and he came and picked us up.
I try not to play the "what if" game in my head, but . . .
What if I hadn't stayed with Betsy for five hours? Megan wouldn't have questioned Laura taking a long nap.
What if I hadn't taken the one pill for my heart that I had kept in my purse for emergencies out of my purse a few weeks earlier? I mentioned that to the doctor and he said she would have ended up in the ICU - at best - if she had taken that pill.
What if Rob and I had gone out that night and just assumed Laura was tired?
Ugh. That little girl is one of the most precious things in my life. We try so hard to protect our children, but no matter how hard we try, things happen. The doctor and nurses at Cooks told me that only having this happen once in 12 years with six kids is amazing, but once is more than enough for us. I have to think that she was kept safe through divine intervention because there are too many realistic "what ifs" for this situation that would have ended really, really badly. So thank you to the guardian angels who kept my baby safe.
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