Conscious Mom

This time, our fist ambulance ride.

(Before you read this, we’re all fine now.)

After a relatively normal morning yesterday Maia went down for her nap early and slept a long, long time. She woke up crying and vomiting, with a high fever, then immediately fell back to sleep. Fast onset fever, vomiting, lethargy and sleepiness. Not good. Not good at all. In fact, red flagged every baby book as ‘CALL DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY’. I tried the doctor… busy… tried again… busy. After about ten tries, the operator informed me that phone lines were down throughout the area and there was no possible way to get in touch with the doctor.

I hesitated…. was I over reacting, kids do get sick… am I going to be one of those mothers who panics at every sniffle? But by this time Maia’s fever had crept up another full degree, and that Pathogenic Microbiology lecture on meningitis from my undergraduate years came rushing back to me; I could actually hear my professor describing Maia’s symptoms. I went ahead and called 911. Within two minutes of picking up the phone someone from the fire department - the volunteer fire department - was taking Maia’s vitals. Two minutes later the paramedics were here. Then the ambulance.

I was all set to hear them pronounce her ’sick, but kids get sick.’ Instead they asked for her car seat so she could ride in the ambulance. Maia just stared at us with glazed eyes, which scared me more than her fever and vomiting. The whole neighborhood watched us drive off.

It’s a 25 minute drive to the hospital; in other words, an eternity when you’re in the back of an ambulance with your baby. The paramedics were great; part of their training must be keeping people calm. They gave Maia a little purple bunny and played peek-a-boo. One of the paramedics reminded me that we had met once before, years earlier when I had whooping cough and had a coughing fit so bad I stopped breathing. I reminded him that he had knocked on my door two years ago to tell us we had to evacuate before the river rushed into our house.

When you get to the emergency room by ambulance, you get to bypass the waiting room, so we were seen right away. They brought down Maia’s fever, watched her for several hours, declared her, ’sick, but kids get sick’, and sent us home. She slept all night long and woke up laughing and ready to play.

The morals: 1) Kids get sick. 2) No one will accuse you over overreacting if you call 911 when your child shows scary symptoms; if in doubt, call. 3) Everyone in the neighborhood loves Maia. We’ve had visitors stopping by all day asking if she’s OK. Even people I’ve never seen before came over to ask about her. I love my neighborhood. Especially the fire department.