Grateful for
Here's an update on Bea. First, let me share that she's sitting in our living room, watching TV, eating cheerios, and occasionally laughing. I've only heard her nasty cough a few times this morning.
Yesterday evening, however, she was working hard to breathe. I'd been chatting with my sister Heather through the day yesterday, updating her on Bea's progress. "I'll see if Luke [my brother-in-law] can stop by and see her on the way home from soccer practice," she said. "Make sure you keep giving her liquids. Time them--every twenty minutes and then more often if she keeps them down."
By five o'clock pm., Bea was keeping everything down, even a few noodles and some chicken broth. But I still felt worried about her. She'd developed an ugly wheeze that never stopped. I'd noticed that her little chest rose high and rapidly with each breath; the whole length of her body seemed to be working for every inhale. Luke sat on the edge of the couch and pulled out his stethoscope.
I love to see gifted doctors at work with children. Maybe because I love working with and writing for children and definitely because I'm a parent, I think the most talented doctors are the ones who know how to strip scariness away and do a thoughtful exam while their little patients remain curious and calm. Luke pulled out his stethoscope. "Have you seen one of these before?" he asked.
Bea has seen a stethoscope a hundred times before--she loves everything to do with doctors and watches TV programs and reads books about so-and-so visiting the hospital repeatedly until she's memorized them. (We've all memorized 'Curious George Goes to the Doctor.') But she shook her head anyway.
First Luke listened to her knees, and they sounded fine. And then he listened to her lungs, and listened some more, and some more after that. Then he pointed at her stomach, pulling hard into her ribs with each breath. "She's working hard to breathe," he said. "It's pretty impressive, actually. I'd go ahead and take her to the ER."
Well, you know a mother loves to hear those words. Inside I felt a little seed of panic. I usually wait for ages before taking the kids to the doctor. Growing up overseas, I never went to the doctor; my dad would check our ears/throat and then prescribe us the medicine we needed, if any. I know the difference between a virus and an infection, and I usually assume it's the former unless it's lasted an unusally long time or become markedly worse. We've only ever taken one daughter to the ER--guess which one--three guesses and the first two don't count. Yes, Elspeth, when she fell headfirst off a picnic table onto concrete. The whack was sickening and her sudden sleepiness afterward necessitated a visit to the ER. They're never fast. They always take ages. By the end of that trip (which involved our whole family sitting in a crowded room for hours and Martin holding down a screaming Elspeth while they scanned her skull), the nurses gave the girls popsicles. As we walked out of the automatic doors, Merry folded her hands happily and said in her grown-up way, "Well, that was a nice afternoon!"
But I hate to see any of my family disappear into a hospital, unless it's to visit somebody else, or in my case, to have a baby three times. I know hospitals try their best but sometimes it seems as if your chances at health get slimmer when you walk through those doors, so unless you're really sick, you need to stay on the outside. But this time Bea was sick enough, and I didn't like that. I didn't know what tests they'd have to run, and I hated the thought of her being scared.
It turns out that the staff was so nice and jolly that the only time she was scared was when the nurse came at her with a mask with medicated oxygen misting out of it. She did not like that. But Martin explained it calmly and she let him hold it to her face while she breathed. Bea is the sort of kid whom you feel is too good to be true. When she's really sick or hurt she tries to smile at you until her little face crumples into tears. This just makes me worry about her more when she's sick.
It was ten-thirty and I was fielding calls from my sister and Martin while taking a shower at the same time. (No, that wasn't static--it was the water running). They gave Bea a teddy bear and the breathing treatment. Her ears were checked for puppies (she didn't have any). If she really didn't know what a stethoscope was before, she does now, because the doctors listened to her lungs for ages. They think she has bronchitis.
And she came home in the wee hour of 12:30 a.m., armed with an inhaler and antibiotics, and slept all night long and awakened happy and non-wheezy.
I am grateful this morning not to be worrying about any of my children. I'm grateful for medicines and medical professionals and gentle sisters and brother-in-laws and daddies who wait for five hours in the ER and health insurance. I'm humbled to be one of the privileged few in this world to have children who receive expert assistance, quickly and carefully. I think of mothers who see their children die from simple but deadly things like dehydration every day, and at least today, I don't take any of these exquisite gifts given to me for granted.
Yesterday evening, however, she was working hard to breathe. I'd been chatting with my sister Heather through the day yesterday, updating her on Bea's progress. "I'll see if Luke [my brother-in-law] can stop by and see her on the way home from soccer practice," she said. "Make sure you keep giving her liquids. Time them--every twenty minutes and then more often if she keeps them down."
By five o'clock pm., Bea was keeping everything down, even a few noodles and some chicken broth. But I still felt worried about her. She'd developed an ugly wheeze that never stopped. I'd noticed that her little chest rose high and rapidly with each breath; the whole length of her body seemed to be working for every inhale. Luke sat on the edge of the couch and pulled out his stethoscope.
I love to see gifted doctors at work with children. Maybe because I love working with and writing for children and definitely because I'm a parent, I think the most talented doctors are the ones who know how to strip scariness away and do a thoughtful exam while their little patients remain curious and calm. Luke pulled out his stethoscope. "Have you seen one of these before?" he asked.
Bea has seen a stethoscope a hundred times before--she loves everything to do with doctors and watches TV programs and reads books about so-and-so visiting the hospital repeatedly until she's memorized them. (We've all memorized 'Curious George Goes to the Doctor.') But she shook her head anyway.
First Luke listened to her knees, and they sounded fine. And then he listened to her lungs, and listened some more, and some more after that. Then he pointed at her stomach, pulling hard into her ribs with each breath. "She's working hard to breathe," he said. "It's pretty impressive, actually. I'd go ahead and take her to the ER."
Well, you know a mother loves to hear those words. Inside I felt a little seed of panic. I usually wait for ages before taking the kids to the doctor. Growing up overseas, I never went to the doctor; my dad would check our ears/throat and then prescribe us the medicine we needed, if any. I know the difference between a virus and an infection, and I usually assume it's the former unless it's lasted an unusally long time or become markedly worse. We've only ever taken one daughter to the ER--guess which one--three guesses and the first two don't count. Yes, Elspeth, when she fell headfirst off a picnic table onto concrete. The whack was sickening and her sudden sleepiness afterward necessitated a visit to the ER. They're never fast. They always take ages. By the end of that trip (which involved our whole family sitting in a crowded room for hours and Martin holding down a screaming Elspeth while they scanned her skull), the nurses gave the girls popsicles. As we walked out of the automatic doors, Merry folded her hands happily and said in her grown-up way, "Well, that was a nice afternoon!"
But I hate to see any of my family disappear into a hospital, unless it's to visit somebody else, or in my case, to have a baby three times. I know hospitals try their best but sometimes it seems as if your chances at health get slimmer when you walk through those doors, so unless you're really sick, you need to stay on the outside. But this time Bea was sick enough, and I didn't like that. I didn't know what tests they'd have to run, and I hated the thought of her being scared.
It turns out that the staff was so nice and jolly that the only time she was scared was when the nurse came at her with a mask with medicated oxygen misting out of it. She did not like that. But Martin explained it calmly and she let him hold it to her face while she breathed. Bea is the sort of kid whom you feel is too good to be true. When she's really sick or hurt she tries to smile at you until her little face crumples into tears. This just makes me worry about her more when she's sick.
It was ten-thirty and I was fielding calls from my sister and Martin while taking a shower at the same time. (No, that wasn't static--it was the water running). They gave Bea a teddy bear and the breathing treatment. Her ears were checked for puppies (she didn't have any). If she really didn't know what a stethoscope was before, she does now, because the doctors listened to her lungs for ages. They think she has bronchitis.
And she came home in the wee hour of 12:30 a.m., armed with an inhaler and antibiotics, and slept all night long and awakened happy and non-wheezy.
I am grateful this morning not to be worrying about any of my children. I'm grateful for medicines and medical professionals and gentle sisters and brother-in-laws and daddies who wait for five hours in the ER and health insurance. I'm humbled to be one of the privileged few in this world to have children who receive expert assistance, quickly and carefully. I think of mothers who see their children die from simple but deadly things like dehydration every day, and at least today, I don't take any of these exquisite gifts given to me for granted.
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