My son’s choking Story
Wednesday July 6, just under a week after E turned 2.
Was a normal evening, called DH on my way to spin class and hung up as he was picking up E. I turned off my ringer because I knew he had both kids. After my hour long class I looked at my phone to 7 missed calls and a text that DH and E were in the ER. I ran out of the gym and called to find out what was going on.
Apparently my DH walks in the door of daycare with our daughter to pick up E and as soon as he walked in the provider comments “He’s choking!” DH runs over grabs him, holds him upside down and tries to pound the food out. He was eating strawberries (cut up). As he was trying to get the strawberry out, provider was trying to sweep the mouth. DH felt E go limp and they called 911. DH is not sure about timing of things but E got a little blue but then started to moan and some of the strawberry dribbled out. Police/Fire and Ambulance came and by the time they arrived E was crying. They put him on oxygen and DH and E went to ER to be seen. Daughter was removed from the room by provider’s children so she didn’t have to see what was going on.
I picked up Daughter and then headed to the ER, got there about 1.5 hours since the incident. E was groggy from Benedryl, they gave that to him just in case he was having an allergic reaction to strawberries (he’s not allergic). And they had an oxygen mask on him because he wasn’t getting 100% oxygen. X-ray’s showed cloudiness in the lungs which could be more food or fluid. They gave him some albuterol (asthma) treatments to open his lungs up to get more oxygen. And in the meantime we were waiting for a team of pediatric respiratory specialists to come up in an ambulance from Santa Clara to transport him to that hospital.
We waited 2 hours in the ER till they showed up and were able to load him into an ambulance. Daughter was really good sitting with us, I wasn’t too worried at that point because E seemed allright, just a little out of it probably because of Benedryl and bedtime. DH rode in the ambulance down to Santa Clara while I followed with Daughter. Grandparents were waiting at Santa Clara to take her home. 10pm we check in to SC Pediatric ICU and 10:30pm Daughter was taken home. X-ray’s were reviewed, his lungs were listened to and they made a decision that they wanted to do an endoscopy (look in his lungs) to make sure that the cloudiness they see and raspiness they hear wasn’t food particles. 11:30 they take him in to surgery (as they called it). They told us 1.5-2 hours, but 3 hours later they finally come out. They said they had cleared out the lungs and that during the procedure he had vomited and coughed so he may have aspirated more food so they’d keep him on a ventilator for a little while with tubes in his lungs and stomach to clear things out. They said a strawberry was a very hard thing to deal with. If it was a penny or a peanut they could go in there and simply remove it, but when they looked it was just mushed strawberry and seeds so a lot to clean up. We then had to wait another 1.5 hours to see him in the ICU and I finally was able to run home at 5am to change out of my workout clothes and grab some stuff from home.
Thursday July 7.
Most horrible day for me. Seeing my son on a ventilator with many wires and tubes coming out of him was the hardest thing for me. I cried pretty much all day. The nurses were awesome and would come and explain what was going on and give me hugs. They were very doting on me considering I was also 35 weeks pregnant. My friends were wonderful and brought us food/meals/snacks etc. Things I didn’t even think of until they were put in front of me. My parents drove up to see what was going on and to help out if they could. What was really difficult was that I kept thinking, you choke, they clean up the lungs and then you go home. But seeing E on 3 different sedation meds so that he wouldn’t touch anything, then occasionally having them suck things out of the lungs and seeing him struggling to wake up and us having to pin him down was heartbreaking. He was so strong and wanted to wake up that Thurs night they had to pump him with a lot of drugs to get him to sleep. Daughter was not allowed to see him in this state. When she visited, DH and I went outside and hung out with her instead of her coming to the room. The nurses insisted I sleep in the parents room near the ICU because I was going on 1.5 hours of sleep in 2 days. DH stayed in the room with E and I snuck in 5 hours of sleep.
Friday July 8
Mornings orders were 7am take E off sedation meds, let him wake up a bit then remove tubes. I asked how long it would take for him to wake up and they said not long. Sure enough, 15 min after the meds were turned off he was struggling. DH and I pinned him down until the nurses could come in and remove the tubes. So 7:20 he was off the ventilator, breathing on his own, just had an IV in. The first words he said was…”Dada”. I got to hold him for a while and we all took turns holding him that morning. He was very groggy and was only awake for 30 min max at a time. He was running a fever which was expected, could be the start of pneumonia from the fluid in his lungs. He talked a little and then started asking for food. He had a horrible cough too. Funny, he didn’t want jello or soft foods, he wanted my turkey sandwich and chips. I didn’t want to give him hard foods yet but the nurses said it’s fine, let him eat whatever he wants. We watched a lot of movies with him and let him nap a lot. He was visited by his sister and when she walked in the room, he rolled over and tried to sit up…so sweet! That night he slept well. DH and I well…the parents room wasn’t available so I stayed up till 1:30am until my back was killing me in the chair. I woke DH up and I took my turn sleeping in the pullout chair bed thing. I slept for a good 6 hours.
Saturday July 9
E was back to normal in my mind. He wasn’t talking as much as he used to, but he was definitely ready to be out and about. We took a walk to the pediatric play room and walked the halls. He tried to escape down the elevator and put up a huge fight when we tried to get him back in his room. Our goal of the day was to get him to take his antibiotics orally (he’d been getting them through IV) so we could go home. That evening they released us to the regular pediatric ward. They wanted to monitor us another night. So annoying. He was ready to go, we were ready to go…we spent most of the day hanging out in the hallways because he hated being cooped up in the room. The nurses were great and got us a normal sized bed for his room so I could sleep with him. Turns out toddler and a pg woman in a hospital bed is very uncomfortable. Especially when they come in and check on him every 4 hours. So I switched with DH and he took the bed while I took the pullout chairbed which for some reason in this room was uncomfortable.
Sunday July 10
We were finally released! 9am and we were out of the hospital. Instructions were to give him antibiotics for a week. Antibiotics that is horrible tasting and kids hate. Great! No restrictions on him, he could play/eat anything/swim etc. DH and I decided to keep him home for the week to monitor him. The grandmas were more than willing to help out. Especially since I had only 4 work days left till maternity leave.
And when we got home, first thing he asks to do…jump on the trampoline and then run a race. All things that made him cough (normal) but doctor’s encouraged to work his lungs.
Aftermath: Antibiotics did not work for him. He gagged and threw them up twice. So doctor switched up the prescription at the follow-up appointment on Tuesday. New antibiotics were easier to get down but has given him diarrhea which sucks! I’ve had to do more laundry then I’ve ever done. Plus he has a horrible diaper rash and cries when you change his diaper and this morning I had to steam clean the rugs because of his poop. He’s been off the antibiotics for 3 days and we haven’t really seen an improvement in the poop department. But other than that he’s his normal self. Eating everything, making us yell chew chew chew at his every bite and just being him. Like I said, I never knew that this would be a 4 day hospital ordeal. I thought choking was simple but I was wrong. I’m so glad that he’s back to normal and I hope that I never have to go through this again.
