Last night, I called 911.

I’ve been a parent for 10.5 years, and it’s taken this long for us to need 911 (which is a blessing!).

We tucked our kids in bed last night as usual, and went to bed ourselves, as usual. But around 1:00 am, we woke up to the sounds of a barky cough. I stumbled upstairs and into Sonia’s room, because she’s the one with allergies and an inhaler. She was sleeping soundly, though, and I realized that Zoe was the one coughing. I went into her room and discovered that in addition to her barky cough, her breathing was very labored and her little heart was beating a million miles an hour.

I made a quick call to the nurse hotline, and they instructed me to call 911. I hesitated for a moment, only because I’d never called 911 before, but Zoe really was having trouble getting enough oxygen and I was getting kind of scared for her. So, I made the call.

Happily, we live less than a mile from the fire station, so the ambulance arrived within minutes. The paramedics immediately hooked Zoe up with an oxygen mask and whisked her out to the ambulance, where they got some medicine into her system on the drive to the hospital. I didn’t know this until later, but apparently they usually wait to administer medicine for stuff like this until the patient arrives at the hospital…but Zoe needed help right away. I’m so glad I called when I did!

By the time we arrived in the ER, she was doing much better (yay for ambulances that are well-equipped with drugs!), but the doctors needed to keep her for at least 6 hours for observation. So, Zoe and I spent the night together in an ER room. I think she slept pretty well, but I didn’t. That’s ok, though…I was just happy to see her sleeping (and breathing) peacefully! It broke my heart to see her struggling for breath before we got help for her.

Thankfully, she’s pretty much back to normal, so we got discharged this morning and she’s got a prescription to help her keep breathing easily for the duration of this virus.

I’m grateful like never before for the emergency services system that’s in place here…how wonderful to have kind, efficient, and effective medical help just moments away from my house. And I’m so grateful to be living in a day and age where problems like this are not life-threatening…I imagine that long ago, children use to die from viruses that cause breathing problems.

I’m so glad my little Zoe-bear is back in good health.

(this picture is from our visit to the park the other day…she’s home resting today, not out biking!)

But my time in the ER with her sort of cut into my blogging time this morning, so you’ll have to wait until next Monday for a Q&A post. 😉 I love you all, but keeping my children breathing is a wee bit more important to me than writing blog posts!

However, my third Tropicana post and giveaway is scheduled to post soon over on my review blog, so check back shortly for that (I might even be in some pictures in that post!). And as long as the coming night is less, um, exciting than last night, I should be back here tomorrow with a regular post.