If in doubt, call and find out

Last night was a bit more eventful that I’d like. 😂 Yesterday at swimming Jeremiah’s teacher dropped him in the water (without any flotation devices) and then lost him under the floating mat for a few seconds (it’s just one of those freak accidents, she didn’t mean any harm). When he came up he was soooo silent and a bit in shock I think. I thought nothing more of it health wise because he was breathing.

Later on that day, around 4pm he became so sleepy and his health deteriorated pretty fast around 8-9pm. He’d been irritable all day too and unable to sleep more than 20 minutes at a time. His breathing was rapid and laboured. His temperature was 41 degrees and panadol wasn’t bringing it down either. Something just didn’t feel right.

I was trying not to overanalyse things and just be there for him… as I sat on my phone googling “when to take a toddler to hospital.” 😂 because, you know, you don’t want to be ‘that’ mum that take the kid to the hospital unnecessarily. And I didn’t want Scott to think I was worried about our son unnecessarily, too.

Meanwhile, Scott was doing his own search with some friends who had linked the swimming incident to his current symptoms causing us some concern.

So we called the hospital paediatric unit to seek advice. They said he needed to be assessed for something called ‘dry drowning’ – where a kid has inhaled the water when going under water. As the incident earlier had been Jeremiah’s first time probably under water and then had stayed under longer than he should have, there was a risk that he may have fluid in his lungs.

So off we went to emergency. It was a half hour drive away and usually Jeremiah falls asleep in the car especially at night. He didn’t fall asleep on the way there and continued to have laboured breathing.

When we got there they saw us pretty fast. He was checked out and his oxygen levels had dropped to 90% (apparently they should be at 95%) and his heart rate was 184. He also had a wheeze in his chest.

So they admitted us to the paediatric observation area. My usually active toddler just lay there, so still, working hard to breathe. They gave more panadol and monitored him. His breathing and heart took another almost 2 hours to start to improve. And thankfully they did.

The doctor in charge said she was happy with him improving so we could go home and keep and eye on him as he would hopefully continue to improve. She said to bring him back straight away if he deteriorates like he was when we came in.

So we came home and his temperature went back up so on to nurophen it was. 😔 anything by mouth is so hard to get in without a vomit, thanks to his long hospital stay earlier this year when he had his operation – he learnt then how to vomit up any medication. He woke up every two hours or so overnight. Poor thing. (And we feel like crap today too 😉)

But the great news is he seems a lot better today. His breathing is so much better.

We were unsure if we should take him in or not. That laboured breathing is what made us take him in and I’m so glad we did. The nurses and doctors were absolutely fantastic. They explained everything so well. And they confirmed that he definitely needed to be seen with his heart and oxygen the way it was.

If in doubt, call and find out. These things always seem to happen when there isn’t a doctor open to go and see. And if you’re anything like us, we don’t want to clog up the hospital emergency rooms, risk exposure to other bugs or take Jeremiah out in the cold (it was6 degrees) unless it’s absolutely needed. I’m so thankful for the hospital and the way they handled everything.

Here’s a video of him breathing in the emergency waiting room before we were seen: