Woody's wild night

A typical day yesterday turned into a not-so-typical night, as Woody decided to see if he could make us crap our pants. I had just finished giving him a big fat bottle (around 4 ounces worth, or about as big as he takes) when he decided to have a puke. This is not too unusual for him, frankly; he has at least some degree of hurling most days, and in fact I’ve become rather used to having to peel off my shirt after he soils it. My big fat Sooners hooded sweatshirt, by dint of being my favorite around-the-house shirt, has been hit no fewer than half a dozen times since he’s been home, for example.

He hadn’t puked at all yesterday, though, so we were feeling pretty good about it, and I’d even joked to Maggie that she had jinxed us by telling me that he hadn’t. So he upchucks, and then fails to breathe afterwards. This was a little scary. He went nearly completely rigid, and had this look on his face as if he was terrified and really wanted to breathe but couldn’t figure out how. We have had the training on reflux and choking and CPR, so even though it was scary we knew generally what to do: run around screaming and yelling and hope that everything turns out ok.

No, just kidding. In fact, the protocol is to administer some fairly vigorous back slaps on him to clear the airway, then make sure that his nose is clear, and then slap the back some more. If he is unable to make that work, then go to the chest compressions. As a last ditch effort, try to breathe for him. After two cycles of the back thrusts, he started trying to breathe again, and when I put the nasal syringe up his nose to clear any milk, he got irritated enough to come back to life and let out a lusty cry. By this time, however, Mag had called 911 and we had the paramedics on their way.

The real upshot of this episode is that we know how quick the paramedics get to our house: really quick. In fact, I was putting on a new shirt (natch) as they walked into the house. They did a quick check on him, said that he was generally ok, but advised us that we had to take him to the hospital to get checked out. So we saddled up and went back to Unnamed Hospital.

By this point in time, I was over the immediate fear of Woody not being able to breathe and was onto the immediate fear that the hospital was going to try to keep him again. After all, he’s only been home for 18 days, and I am not interested in the slightest in giving him back yet. At the hospital, this translated into (I am not kidding) clutching Woody to my chest and refusing to let anyone else, including Maggie, hold him. I also tried to get her to change the consent forms to “we consent to his treatment ONLY IF you promise not to keep him”. The nurses and the doctors examined him while I was holding him—I didn’t want him to be afraid or mad by strange people holding him or poking him. Much.

We’ve been made a little … cavalier in our attitude toward the hospital, though. As evidence, consider the following two things that happened while we were in the ER room. First, Maggie picked up the house phone and called the NICU to see if Nurse S or Nurse M were on duty so that they could hang out with us (neither was there). Second, we’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy on DVD via Netflix since Woody’s been home, so we know that all the ER residents are all sleeping with each other (it is a reputable source for information, right? They wouldn’t mislead us, right?). So when the resident came to talk to us, I almost literally had to bite my tongue from asking him which one of the nurses he was boinking. I am so glad I didn’t ask though, because I think he probably would have been offended.

In the end, the only thing that happened was that he got a new x-ray to make sure he hadn’t given himself a little chemical pneumonia by aspiration, and when they confirmed that he didn’t, they let him go. I was very relieved, and so was he: in fact, later that night, he was hungrier than I’d ever seen him. It goes without saying, though, that my sleep was wrecked last night (Maggie’s too, probably) so I’m pretty darn tired. Still. And to make sure I was REALLY dehumanized by the whole experience, I had to go to the hospital with a sizable amount of Woodypuke IN MY HAIR. Which wasn't so much fun.

After all that, though, Woody’s doing great, though, and he’s now almost 11 pounds (10 pounds 10 ounces). So I'm just hoping he stops trying to freak us out.