A mother’s worst nightmare

This isn’t the post I was going to publish today, but the events of this morning are still fresh in my mind.

The kids and I were doing some craft.  I put some washable ink all over their little hands to make hand prints on some paper.  I wiped Daniel’s hands off and took Hannah to the bathroom to wash ours in the sink.

I heard choking noises coming from the living room, only a few feet from the bathroom.  I quickly left the bathroom to check on Danny.  He was laying on his stomach, propped up on his arms, clearly choking on something.  I didn’t know what he could possibly be choking on.  I vacuumed the floor yesterday and there was nothing small enough for him to choke on lying around.

He started screaming.  His little face was turning red.  I frantically started patting his back.  “Come on buddy, get it out.”

Drool was pouring out of his mouth, tears from his eyes. He kept gagging, but nothing would come up.

I grabbed the phone. A part of me wondered if I shouldn’t dial 000, making the paramedics come out over possibly nothing.  But when it comes to my children, I don’t care if I end up looking like a moron for being paranoid over what turns out to be nothing.  They are precious, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I dialled straight away.

“000, what is your emergency?” I can’t recall if that’s what they actually said, but in my mind it is.

“I think my baby is choking on something!” I was trying my darndest not to cry with every word that came out of my mouth.  I know it’s ok to cry blah blah blah, but Hannah was right next to me and I didn’t want her to get all upset.  She didn’t know the seriousness of the situation, and she didn’t need to.

I told them where I live.

“Don’t pat him on the back.” The operator told me. Oops.  I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. Turns out that can make the object go further down.

He was still screaming, which the man told me is a good thing.  He could breathe.  But he was still drooling, gagging, and coughing.  The drool looked bloodstained. Oh. My. Gosh.

I felt so helpless, just sitting there, watching my baby choke. “Should I put him in a certain position?” I asked.

He said some medical mumbo jumbo, finally explaining that Danny should be held on his side with his head down.

It seemed like hours, but only minutes later the paramedics arrived.

They sat him up to listen to his breathing.  Nothing was lodged in his windpipe, luckily he could breathe just fine. But he was still choking.

He started retching, heaving as much as he could trying to get the foreign object out.  They told me to lay him on me on his side, head down again.

Hannah got her doctors kit out and tried to help.

A big wad of saliva came out. With it, the offending object. A frog sticker.

The offending sticker. Just smaller than a 5 cent piece

Immediately he calmed down.  His face starting going back to a normal colour.  He stopped gagging and coughing.  It was over.

It took me a couple of hours to calm down.  Until then all my crazy mommy hormones were telling me that I should be crying my eyes out. But I didn’t.  I had to be strong for the kids.

I thought Daniel must have found the sticker under the couch, but later I remembered that it was stuck on Hannah’s bucket.  The very bucket he’d been playing with when I went to wash my hands.

They didn’t think it was blood in his saliva, but some of the red ink that was on his hands from our craft. Phew.

Back to his usual cheeky self

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