A mothers worst nightmare.

Our lives have been a little hectic lately. I don't know what it was with this past week, but the best word to describe it was "draining."

Robert and I today, are still trying to recover from the scary events of friday night, but we feel very blessed and humbled by it.

That night Rob and I were going to go up to his sisters, but because I wasn't feeling to well, and Benjamin had a little cough--- we decided to stay home for a quiet evening. Around 9 pm Benjamin woke up with a "Barky" cough. Big deal, right? But to be sure, we decided to call the nurse to make sure he was ok and if there was anything we could do to help him. We called the nurse and she confirmed with us that he had croup. Benjamin was happy and looked like he was feeling fine, so the nurse told us that the cough sounds worse than it is and that we have nothing to worry about and gave us some things to do to help him. So, we turned on the shower, turned on the humidifier ect. We put Benjamin down, and continued watching the movie BIRDS. Around 10:20 or so, we heard Benjamin cough again and then whimper a little--- and of course he had been doing this all night, but a min after, rob got up to check on him. Benjamin was face down in his crib and limp. Rob brought him out of his room--- he was barely breathing, all his color was gone, and he looked bluish and his eyes were glazed. Rob laid him on the ground- looked lifeless. I cannot explain the utter panic and fear that I had--- I called 911 and knocked on our neighbors door. Our neighbor was calling her friend who was a med student-- while rob gave benjamin a blessing. Right after the blessing benjamin barely moved his head. Benjamin was so still and was using all of his effort and energy to take some shallow breaths. I have never felt so helpless in my life.I felt like the 911 operator was not helpful-- and that we were running out of time and we had a better chance of driving to Texas Children's hospital (which was about 6 miles away). As rob and I were running barefoot down our stairwell our neighbor yelled to us that we should trying giving him "breaths"-- it wasn't until after rob gave benjamin some breaths that he started to give a few struggled cries. WE finally reached Texas Children's, where they gave benjamin a steroid to hep with the constriction in his throat and tylenol to take the fever down (which we didn't even know he had until they took his temp). He was still very weak and did not regain his strength until about 30 later. Once the drugs kicked in--Benjamin was himself speed crawling all over the ER waiting room. I am sure people were wondering why was this kid in the ER. He was making everyone laugh around him-- He is really good at that.
We spent all of the night and early morning at Texa's Childrens, for observation and his cough was less frequent and his breathing less constricted. Poor Benjamin-- he spent most of the time Fighting off nurses-- He went though 3 shifts or nurses and they ALL commented on how they had heard about him. The first set of nurses couldn't get his vitals, after fighting with him for 30 mins.as rob says" At least we know our kid isn't a quitter." Now I know, that some of you who are EXPERIENCED PARENTS-- have probably all had something like this happen to one or all of your kids. I feel for my mother-in-law, who seemed to have had many different medical emergencies with her 7 children. She is a tough lady.

From that incident I was reminded or learned about a couple of things:
1) How I truly need to cherish EVERY min with Benjamin, and with anyone in my life
2) How grateful I am for my husband and that he is a worthy Priesthood holder
3) How grateful I am for the Priesthood
4) How I don't do that well in an emergency (especially if it is dealing with my child). I mean I wasn't in Hysterics or anything-- but... you know,
5) That I should NEVER drive in an emergency --- *laughs* we were lucky we made it out of the parking lot. (rob demanded that he drive before we left our complex).
6) THat I need to tell our complex to indicate that a certain exit is not open after a certain time-- before you get to it, and have to back-out a narrow, windy road, if you make that mistake, its a pain to back-out of.(lets be honest--- if you are having an emergency you arn't going to remember that that exit is closed!)
7) Don't call 911 if you live 6 miles away from a Hospital and you need immediate help. Our Nieghbor told us that they showed up 15 mins after we had left. We made it to the hospital in 6 mins.
8) That Benjamin is a fighter, and the greatest blessing in our life! And that in situations like this you can't worry about "how much will this cost me....

Well, on this happy note--- Benjamin seems to be doing really well. His cough is less often, and he is his happy self.