A New Year's Tale

It’s New Year’s Eve, your first New Year’s Eve out of the house in 4 years. Your toddler happily plays with another couple’s toddler while you engage in adult conversation and card games. There are snacks and sparkling fruit beverages to drink. You make it past midnight with a kiss and the promise of a better year ahead.

Then you hear your child crying from across the room. She has fallen from her chair. She is gagging. Is she upset or is she choking on something? You call your husband, who tries performing the Heimlich. You call the hostess, a midwife, who tries vigorously smacking your child’s back. Your child is crying and wheezing. Her face is red. She’s having an allergic reaction, but you don’t know what she ate. You race to the diaper bag and dump its contents on the floor. This is no time to be tidy. You grab the Epipens and hand them to the midwife: “will you do it?” You ask. She doesn’t know how to use this kind. You take out the safety cap and jab your daughter’s leg with the first pen. “You’re supposed to hold it in her leg!” your husband exclaims as the midwife jabs the needle back into your daughter’s leg and holds it there. The Epipen has been wasted and no medicine dispensed. Your husband takes the second Epipen and jabs it into your daughter’s other leg. She continues to wheeze, to cry. He holds the pen in her leg for a long time. You holler for the host to call 911.

The steps to take in the case of an emergency reaction are there, carefully memorized, carefully documented and retold to caregivers, but in the terror of the moment, the information comes in bits and pieces to your frazzled mind.

The people at 911 are slow. They ask too many questions, relayed to you by the host. Send an ambulance already, you think! The host tells 911 that you will drive yourselves since you are near the hospital. You ask the midwife to drive so you can sit and talk with your daughter in the backseat of the car.

Naturally it is snowing out; snow on top of the freezing rain from earlier in the evening. The car slips and slides and the trip takes longer than it should. Your daughter is still wheezing, but she responds in a small, clipped voice to questions about the Woody movie (“Toy Story”) and Evie, her favorite friend at school.

The hospital is nearly empty. You frantically tell the security guard at the desk that you have a child who is having an allergic reaction. He’s in no rush to find someone to help you. You realize you are a bit wild-eyed and panicky as you wait only minutes before inquiring: “is someone coming to help us?” The Epipen only buys you so much time. What if your child passes out while the security guard is doodling on his notepad and the ER personnel are waking from their post-midnight stupor?

You are taken to a room where, amidst much renewed crying and frantic clinging, a monitor is placed on your child’s toe. Her oxygen level is good. Her heart rate is fine. A doctor listens to your story and sends in a nurse with a nebulizer. Other nurses blow bubbles and cheer for your child as the nebulizer nurse holds a mask to your daughter’s face. She struggles to push the mask and its strange vapors away. It’s another moment where you find yourself apologizing for the hard, sometimes painful things that you have to let happen to your precious child.

The nebulizer is done and the original nurse comes back in with an assistant. They are going to wrap your child up “like a burrito” before inserting a port into her arm. More misery as your child struggles against being wrapped, against being stuck with the port, and wails as the nurse administers 3 different intravenous drugs – a steroid, pepcid and Benadryl.

Everyone leaves, and as you hum and stroke her forehead, your daughter falls asleep. Too short a time later someone comes to get you. It’s time for a chest X-ray. You are pregnant so you have to wait in the hall and listen to the wailing as your husband helps hold your daughter in place.

Back in the room again and your daughter falls asleep. The doctor wants to monitor her for a few hours, so the lights are turned out. It’s nearly 2 AM and the long, long night of waiting begins. Your husband climbs into bed and cuddles your child. You watch the end of a Reese Witherspoon movie on television. The doctor comes in to check on your daughter. She is red and sweaty. It is a reaction to the steroid. She continues to sleep. You watch Piers Morgan interview Beyonce, listen to “Snow Patrol” on your IPod and update your 2012 calendar. The doctor comes in every hour. Finally, your daughter is released.

At 5:45 AM on New Year’s Day, you bundle your sleepy child into the car and make the slippery drive home.