I’m Thankful for Hospitals, Helicopters & 7 Year Old Girls

Doesn’t that just sound like a bazaar thing for me to write about?  The truth is, when I first signed up to be one of the writers in the 31 Days of Thanks blog hop, I didn’t think I’d be writing about any of that!

As I sit here, in my 7 year old daughter’s hospital room with my feet propped up on a chair, I have plenty of time to contemplate the many things I have to be thankful for.  Right now, my thoughts move toward modern day medicine.  It seems, our family has been using it a little more often than I’d like to admit!

The most recent event began Sunday evening.  We had been to church that day and in the evening, we dropped the kids off at our local AWANA club.  When I came back to pick them up, my 7 year old said that she wasn’t feeling very well.  She was laying in the back seat of our van, doubled over with stomach pain.  We got her home, the pain subsided a bit and I noticed that she was breathing a little quickly.  I felt her head and decided she may have a slight fever and that was most likely the cause of her quick breathing.

Around 4:00 a.m., my husband heard her coughing and knew she didn’t sound quite right.  She had been up and in the bathroom, so he called her to our room and pulled her into bed with us.  That was when he realized that her heart was racing and that her respirations were really fast, too.  We kept her with us, monitoring her for another 30-45 minutes and finally decided to take her to the hospital to get her checked out.  I had checked her temperature and it was normal and her heart was beating at around 150+ beats a minute.  Her little chest and tummy were moving rather violently to keep up with her breathing.

The whole way to the ER, my husband and I were talking about how we were probably over reacting.  My husband was trained as a medic in the Army, so we tend to self treat as much as possible.  On those rare occasions that we end up taking them in to get checked out, we tend to second guess their need to be seen.  Once we got there, we were told that there’s no way that we over reacted and that we would for sure be admitted and we may even be transferred to a larger town.

We looked at each other with wide eyes.  Next, they came in and say, she’s going to be transferred, they just have to decide if she should be taken by helicopter or by ambulance.  Again, we look at each other with wide eyes and think to ourselves….she’s just not that bad, surely they’ll allow the ambulance.  Well, I guess with children, after they’ve been working as hard as she was for several hours, their little bodies can just crash.  Her lungs could have shut down without any notice.  Adults gradually get worse.  Kids just crash.  So, the next thing we knew, they were preparing our little girl to go onto a flight to the nearest Children’s hospital and her parents couldn’t go with her!  I was horrified at the thought of putting my little girl on the flight without me, but the flight crew made me feel much more at ease.  It felt weird watching her go….but we knew it was best that she be in a Children’s hospital as quickly as possible, in case the worst actually did happen.

They gave us the choice to go to Kansas City or Wichita.  Because my sister lives near Wichita and my mom was at her house, caring for her children, we chose Wichita.  The helicopter was supposed to take 45 minutes to arrive and it would take us 2-3 hours to drive after we gathered our things up, so we called my mom and asked her to meet our daughter at the hospital, so she would have a family member present, to put her at ease.

Once at the hospital, it was confirmed that she has pneumonia.  We arrived here on Monday morning and at the time I’m writing this, it is just barely Thursday (12:20 a.m, to be exact).  It looks like she may be released today if she continues to be able to go without oxygen.

As I’ve sat here in the hospital taking care of my little girl, I have had plenty of time to think of all the things God has blessed me with.  I have MANY things to be thankful for!  But….the most recent would be modern medicine!  In the olden days, pneumonia was a very feared disease.  Not everyone who got it, lived through it.  Of course, that’s still the case to a small degree, but generally speaking, in 2012, if you get pneumonia, you usually expect to live.

I’m thankful for the research and medicine that makes pneumonia treatable.  I’m thankful for the hospital who sets all of this up, including providing the doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, cooks to feed us, volunteers to provide us with craft projects to entertain bored little kids and many more people who are working behind the scenes that I know I haven’t even thought of yet.  I’m even thankful for that helicopter ride.  It’s hard to say it, because this part of her treatment plan is most likely going to cost us the most money.  But, had our little girl’s lungs “crashed” and not had the help that she needed available to her, we’d have a hard time living with ourselves!

Even though, we’re becoming tired of living here in this hospital, I’m so thankful that my little girl is improving and that God has his healing hand upon her.  If you were following me through my Facebook page the last couple of days,  and you saw my prayer request, thank you for praying for her.  There were many people lifting her up in prayer and those prayers have not gone unnoticed!

Lastly, I’m of course very, very thankful for my 7 year old daughter!  We don’t get much alone time, but this week, we’re getting all that we could want!  We’re playing board games, reading, watching movies, doing crafts and just hanging out together.  I think she’s enjoying the 1 on 1 attention.  She’s such a sweetie and I’m so thankful that God saw me fit to be her mother!

 Tell me what’s going on in YOUR life this week that YOU are thankful for?