Cue the gray hair

Speaking of the son I love dearly...

He gave me quite a scare last night. Actually it was not long after that last blog post.

A typical Wednesday night, Jake was gone at youth group and I was rummaging through the refrigerator for leftovers to feed the troops. "Lunch meat: Ashley, Micah, and Kate will eat that. 2 string cheeses: Emily can have one, Mabry will want the other. Leftover rice: Everyone but Abby will eat that." And so on until everyone has something that resembles a full meal.

Now, on a normal night, we'd all be sitting at the table together. I feed Kate, Jake keeps an eye on Micah because he's known for eating too fast and/or stealing food from other plates, and we tag team Abby and Mabry. But because last night was a hodge podge meal, the kids ate in shifts at the counter as I kept pulling out random food and heating it up.

But somewhere near the end of Micah's bowl of rice, he jumped down from his barstool, and with big eyes, started rocking side to side and pointing at his throat. Now, this isn't completely uncommon. Micah always eats so fast that sometimes we have to stop and let the food catch up. When this happens, its not an issue of not getting air. He's breathing... technically... but he does this gurgly, burping, coughing... thing... for a few minutes and once the food "clears" he gets a big smile, gives sort of a thumbs up and dives face first back into his plate of food.

So I went right over and sat with him, encouraging him to take slow breaths, rubbing is back gently and kindly reminding him that this is why he needs to CHEW and eat slowly. I mean, everything is a teachable moment right? :)

But after about 10 minutes of gurgling, crying, and rocking... it wasn't "normal for Micah" anymore. I started to get nervous. I prompted Emily to gather up the 3 little girls into the living room and Ashley to start cleaning up the kitchen. Its that moment when you aren't sure how serious something is about to become and you just know you need to be prepared.

5 more minutes past and nothing had changed. And for last 20 minutes I'd been running the checklist in my head: Are his lips blue? No. Does he have good color? Yes. He's crying so I know he's getting some kind of air, but he clearly can't take deep breaths. Could he be having an allergic reaction? No, he's literally just had lunch meat and white rice. Stuff he has all the time.

I check out trusty Google. I literally typed in "choking on rice". Somehow I got to wikipedia reading about aspirating. When pulmonary aspiration occurs during eating and drinking, the aspirated material is often colloquially referred to as "going down the wrong pipe."  Yes, check. Food going down the wrong pipe. I think that's what's going on here. So I keep reading. Consequences of pulmonary aspiration range from no injury at all, to chemical pneumonitis or pneumonia, to death within minutes (which you KNOW is the only part my brain read) from asphyxiation. Ok, so maybe Google wasn't the best idea.

I've had enough, I pick up my phone and call 911. I gave them our address and a description of whats going on. I have Ashley (who pretty much cleaned the entire house in that few minutes because she didn't know what else to do with herself) go unlock the childlock on the front door and wait there to flag down the paramedics. Micah's still rocking, crying and gurgling.

Of course, he freaks out when they come in because he still hates doctors from his horrible experiences in Ukraine. After much conversation between myself and one of the paramedics, some listening to Micah's back, and Micah finally calming down enough to tell the team "bye" because he wanted them to leave, he was looking much better.

My options were to take him in to do some Xrays to see if there is actually any food in his lungs or keep an eye on him. If he starts to show symptoms like a fever or labored breathing, he could have aspiration pneumonia. Where his body sort of covers the food with fluid because its foreign, causing pneumonia. So I opted to not traumatize him further and just keep an eye on him.

I'm going to call the pediatrician this morning to see what they want to do, but I really think he's fine now. Its just a really good reminder that I've got to keep a close eye on him while he eats. And maybe its time for a swallow study after all.

I'm really proud of how well my big girls stepped up to the plate, you never would have known that 5 other children were in this house.

And aside from the gush of tears that came when I finally heard the sirens and saw the lights in our culdesac (which I managed to wipe away before they came in), I was glad I was able to stay calm through the entire ordeal.

But I might be the only 29 year old mom in town sporting a couple of new gray hairs.