AdventureDad

Friday night turned out to be very frightening.  Daniel started coughing in his sleep, couldn't breathe, and almost choked to death.  And it happened not once, but twice.  Thank God everything turned out alright.  Trust me, it's not a nice thing to walk into your child's room and see him gasping for air.

Friday night was business as usual. Daniel had dinner, watched a little TV, and then got ready for bed.    At 8.30 pm he was sound asleep and were both doing stuff on the computers.  About an hour later we hear him coughing.  This is not unusual  since he goes to daycare and has a mild cold every now and then.  But the coughing continued so we went into his room to check on him.  I immediately saw that he was barfing in the bed and lifted him out so it wouldn't get too messy.  I checked and saw that there was very little puke in the bed.  He stood up on the floor while trying to puke  some more while I stood on my knees behind him offering support.  Every now and then he gets a stomach bug or puts some strange stuff in his mouth so a little puking a few times a year is nothing unusual.  But I noticed that he tried and tried, but there was very little coming up.  After perhaps 20-30 seconds I could tell that he was in pain and in trouble.  Sandra turned on the lights and I asked for some paper to clean up his mouth.  He continued to cough and was  trying to puke but was also kind of gasping for air.  It was not something we had seen before.  As Sandra got back she saw his face and immediately got concerned.  Very little puke was coming up and he was turning blue in the face.  But I couldn't see this since I was holding him from behind.  Sandra became completely paralyzed and didn't  tell me he was turning blue.  She knew the correct procedure when someone is choking but in the heat of the moment she was unable to tell me what to do.  Just as I was becoming extremely worried the coughing slowed down and Daniel relaxed.  He cried for about 30 seconds and then  quickly fell asleep in our bed after we had made sure everything was fine.

As I walked into Daniel's room the tears were running down Sandra's cheeks.  She was really scared about the incident and feared that we might lose our son.  I hadn't been that worried since I didn't clearly see his face turning blue.  I also work very well under pressure, something that I've become used to during my tennis career and at my job.  I face more pressure in one hour than most people do in a month and that helps me to keep calm and act properly when drastic things happen.  We cleaned up around his bed and talked about what had happened.  It felt like something got stuck in his throat and he was fighting to get it up.  I think Sandra was a little angry that she didn't tell me to do the Heimlich maneuver for kids when he was turning blue.  She was just to chocked and scared to speak.  But it wouldn't have made a difference since he stopped coughing at just the right moment.  The whole incident felt long but it was over in a minute or two. 

As he slept in our bed we made sure to check on him every few minutes and we could also hear if there was a problem. Everything sounded fine. Just as we were relaxing,  Daniel started coughing again.  And the same ugly way as before.  A dry cough, gasping for air, and trying to clear the throat.  This time I took him into the bathroom where I could see him clearly and observed him for a few seconds before taking action.  He was struggling for air and I put him over my knees and hit him in the shoulder blade area with my hand to clear the throat.  He didn't enjoy that  but stopped coughing sooner this time. It felt like a everything was over in about a minute.  And this time he didn't turn blue.  Just as the first time, I saw no foreign object or strange food come out of his mouth.  Daniel was back asleep after a few more minutes. We both looked at each other and decided to go to the hospital to have him checked out.  Going through this a third time in one night would not be pleasant and  what would happen if he did have something stuck in his throat?  He could choke to death in  no time at all. We got out stuff ready and put a sleeping Daniel in the car. 

Since we take the elevator straight down into our garage and the hospital is nearby we were there in a few minutes.  Not crowded at all but we got priority since blocked airways can be very dangerous.  A great looking female doctor (I just had to put that in there to cheer myself up) took a look at him and then came back in a few minutes with another doctor for a second opinion.  Everything looked and sounded fine but the doctors decided to X-ray Daniel after speaking to another child specialist.  One odd thing was that Daniel's left cheek was full of freckles.  The doctor's explanation was that he had struggled so much that many of the tiny arteries in the face had simply bursted.  We hadn't even noticed but were told that they should disappear in a week or two.  I can tell you that it was the least of our problems.

They were so nice at the hospital.  We were met by another nurse who took us down to x-ray where we were greeted by two more nice looking women.  We did some upper body x-rays and Daniel performed like a champion.  He laid still and wasn't scared at all.  The whole time I explained exactly what was going on and it seemed like he understood it perfectly.  We finished off with a x-ray in a MRI-like machine which looked huge and kind of scary.  Daniel laid on his back and had the giant machine on top of him but didn't even flinch.  I was very impressed.  After a great job by Daniel and the x-ray personnel we headed back to our room and waited for the doctor.  She showed up after a while  and told us the good news, everything looked great and we could go home.  There was no sign of anything strange in the airways and she was unable to tell us the exact cause of the incident.  We headed home and it was a tired family that crashed in our bed at 1.30 am after about two hours at the hospital.  But it was amazing how well Daniel acted at the hospital.  No crying or complaining.  He just played with some toys, rode the elevator, and let the doctors poke him without saying a word.

We suspect that the cause of the blocked airwaves could have been some popcorn he had earlier.  He's over two years old and eats everything but I guess it's possible he got some popcorn stuck even though we picked out the larger unfinished pieces. In case it was popcorn it's really weird that it took 4 hours until something happened. It could also have been a piece of some toy that he accidentally got into his mouth.  We simply don't know.  But when he woke up the next day he was happy as usual, even though his throat sounded a bit irritated from the  barfing adventure.

Thank God everything worked out alright. We don't know how close he was to death and we don't want to find out. Daniel, please don't to this to us again.  You mean so much to us. We want to grow old and slow while watching you become a fine young man.  And we can't wait to play with your grandkids.

Love, Mommy and Daddy.

Categories: Daniel, Family
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