Part 1

At this point, I am so tired of telling the story that I have had a hard time finding the energy to come here and tell you all. How about it sucked? I almost killed my precious baby by not taking her in to the ER much sooner. I had no idea the signs and triggers that I should have known and I assumed her asthma wasn't serious b/c we didn't see anything and the home before us smoked with her in the house. It was to be expected that she got better, right? No. Her asthma is life threatening. It is not something I can ignore. It will be a significant part of our daily life. She has been in a near constant state of emergency for quite some time. I had no idea that a little cough isn't little for her. She has been waking so many times at night and THAT is a sign. Now they are treating her for acid reflux and feel this will help with the night waking. I could go on and on about all the things I missed but you get the point, I majorly screwed up.

I took the kids for a picnic in the yard Tuesday and she barely ate, she spent her time running around the yard and squealing when I chased her. We came in and things went down hill from there. She was breathing heavy so I treated her and it didn't stop. I knew I could give her several treatments so I did. I though perhaps she was having a hard time b/c she was stuffed up and I put her in the shower with me. It didn't get better. I called Rosa to come home so I could take her to the hospital sure I was overreacting. She was irritable and freaked at the hospital when anyone touched her. They saw she was breathing heavy and took us right back to an isolated trauma room. I assume so we wouldn't torture the rest of the folks there. They sent in the RT and gave her a treatment. No one checked her oxygen and being the first time this has happened, I had no idea this was a necessary step. She screamed and screamed until she "fell asleep" in my arms. Quite some time later, the nurse came to check on us and I insisted on another treatment b/c she was breathing heavy again. She casually hooked her up to the monitor and she never moved a bit. I thought that was weird but still no flags for me. The nurse kinda laughed that the monitor must be broken and hooked her up to another one. It said the same thing, 71. My baby was not asleep, she was unconscious! They called for the RT and the doctor and I could tell they were getting upset. She was immediately put on oxygen and told me we would be transferred to the children's hospital.

I called Rosa to come pick up Patches and poor Patches was freaking out. Then the ambulance came for us. We began our trip at a normal speed and sometime on the trip the lights were turned on and the sirens began blaring. I was a mess. I couldn't see her but I knew she was in trouble. I found out later that they couldn't get her oxygen to stay up and they had her on continuous albuterol and oxygen. At the new ER, the nurse informed me that I must be mistaken, she couldn't have gotten to 71 b/c she seemed better now and she would have been blue. I explained that I had no idea if she was blue b/c she had been in my Hip Hammock and was asleep. Within minutes of taking her off the albuterol, things got really bad fast. Her oxygen dropped and couldn't be raised. They were baffled and I could tell they were scared for her. Not much was said to me and I didn't understanding the mumble jumble they were saying. They had lots of people in the room trying different masks and oxygen levels on her. After an hour or so they decided she needed to stay up in ICU on 100% oxygen with a special mask that only they had up there. She remained in the upper 80s and there was lots of talk about a ventilator.

Once in ICU, she was surrounded by 6+ people trying to help her. They had no idea why this was happening. Her heart rate was between 201-215 all night b/c of the albuterol. It should have been around 120. She was breathing 90+ times a minute and that should have been in the 20s. Her oxygen never rose above 91 with 100% oxygen and continuous albuterol and steroids. Eventually they had to sedate her b/c she was out one minute and a tornado spinning around and around ripping things off the next. They gave her a dose of something and there was no change. They asked me if she had been exposed to drugs b/c she was still wild. Of course ehr stupid mother had done drugs and now she was in trouble and they couldn't calm her. I was seething. They gave her another dose and about 10 minutes later she started to relax and fall asleep. You could hear everyone breath a sigh of relief. She was still in trouble but at least she wouldn't rip out the IV and tear off the mask over and over again.

In the morning, they sat me down and explained that it looked like they would have to put her on the ventilator. They forced me out of the room to go and eat and they were going to get things together while she slept. I returned about 30 minutes later and her oxygen had risen a teenie tiny bit, they decided to see if she could maintain at 92-93 for a few more minutes. It got better from there. She had turned a corner and she was holding strong. We barely missed that ventilator and she somehow knew it. It took quite some time to digest it all. I was so tired I was on the verge of tears every time I was left alone with her. I knew I loved this child but I had no idea how much until I sat with her in that ICU all alone.

I wrestled with guilt of not telling her mother how serious it was, I didn't want her there causing drama. I down played it quite a bit and then felt horrible and selfish. When I came clean the next day and tried to tell her what was going on, she listened for a few minutes and cut me off. She said, "OK, but that's not why I called. I want you to change my number on my cell b/c I keep getting weird messages." The guilt left me and I felt myself get all hot. I realized right then that she just wants her to show her off. She doesn't adore her like I do. This is so new to me, Nikki adores Emma. If Emma was in the hospital, I would call Nikki as soon as I got off the phone with my DH. OK, truth be told, Nikki would be called before my DH. She is further away and she is her mother, too. I would want her there every second, she would want to be there.

I had issues with the doctor that I will post about tomorrow. The kids were in rare form for Rosa. Poor woman has made it clear that she would never want to raise them if something happened to me. Good thing Kiki is willing, blind fool she is. LOL

I chatted with the kids a bit today and was cornered by 2 of my girls. They wanted to talk about "something bad". Turns out that both girls are masturbating A LOT. They are worried that they are going to get caught at school. They wanted to know if they would get in trouble if their principal found out. It seems that a teacher there looks like their mother and it makes them "want to hump". Great. Both girls had to have medicine on their privates b/c they have injured themselves from too much activity. They both insist it is only when they are alone and no one else sees them. One has a great deal of guilt afterwards and the other decided she wanted to share with me every time she came out of the bathroom today. How do you delicately tell your 7 yr old that you do not need to know every time she masturbates? There is no easy way and when I asked her if she washed her hands she went directly to the sink. Who knows how many times she has held my hand with out washing before. I am not so sure I like her feeling THIS safe with me. Can't a girl pleasure herself without informing me of it? I'm gonna have to address this. Anyone want to trade places?