Oh my goodness. What a day.

Ours started out relatively normal, but ended up with us calling the paramedics. When Gage came home, he was feeling pretty bad. (Gage is my 12 year old for my new followers). He had a really dry cough, which I have been noticing for the last few days, but he had quite a bit of fever.

Well, I gave him two Advil tablets and when he went to swallow them, he had the funniest look on his face and the drink that he had in his mouth was pouring out of his mouth, and he grabbed his neck. I could see him struggling to breathe. Somehow the tablets got caught in his throat, and he was choking. I gave him the water bottle and told him to drink a little bit more water and when he did, it came back up without the pills.

This went on for a good 20 seconds and I could see the fear in his eyes. Gary grabbed him under his abdomen and did one rep of what I would call the Heimlich maneuver. He then gasped and started talking and acted like he could breathe, but he started screaming and saying it’s still stuck – it’s still stuck. We were trying to calm him down and assure him that it would go down if he would drink some water so he tried and again the water came back up, and then it was almost as if it lodged in his throat again and he went to flailing his arms and I could tell he couldn’t breathe.

I called the fire department right up the road and they immediately dispatched and started heading this way. It was absolutely horrible. It’s like he would clear his throat for a second and be able to catch a breath and then they would become lodged again. I don’t know how in the world they were getting stuck like that but it was terrifying. Finally Gary grabbed him again and swiftly pulled up on his abdomen, and he vomited and the pills came out.

I’ve just never seen anything like that before with something so small. I had no idea that anyone could choke on something that little. It just happened so fast. You have so little time to react.

They suggested that it probably was stuck in his upper esophagus, which would explain why he was able, when he could, to catch a breath. So his airway must not have been completely blocked off, but as he would panic, he was making the situation worse which any of us probably would, because that’s scary when you’re choking on something and he’s a kid.

I’m just glad we were able to get it up without them having to put a tube down his throat or anything awful. He already absolutely hates taking pills and now he’s going to be pretty traumatized.

I know I brag on Gary a lot, but I swear he is such an Angel in my life. He handled that so calmly and so rationally and I’m so glad that he was here when it happened. He had tears in his eyes when it was over with, and I could see the emotion go all over him once it was over. I’m so thankful he could separate himself from his emotions, stay calm, and help me think clearly as well.

So that was our day. Needless to say, I made a trip to CVS to get some liquid PainQuil. The boy is still running quite a bit of fever this evening and on top of that happening he’s pretty wiped out. Understandable. I feel pretty wiped out myself.

We were planning on taking the kids to the museum and going to play in the sand on the beach tomorrow, but I don’t guess we’ll be doing that unless he makes a really quick recovery. That could happen…kids are pretty resilient.

Well, I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the weekend.

Sorry I haven’t been reading many people‘s blogs and commenting, etc.. I’m going to catch up tomorrow. Both kids have had quite a bit of homework this week and then we watched the state of the union and things like that this week. Seems like every day’s been kind of busy primarily in the evenings. I’ll try to catch up with all of you guys in the next few days.