Mom of the Year Award

I wish they had a font for sarcasm. You could use it anytime you wanted to be sarcastic and that way, there wouldn't be any confusion, everyone would know.

It's a great idea, I know. If you want to steal it, I'm cool with that, just make sure I get some royalties from it when you make millions of dollars.

If I had a sarcasm font, I would use it to type this sentence:

And the Mom of the Year Award for Sunday, May 6th 2012 goes to: Brooke Varner!

And the crowd goes wild (also typed in said sarcasm font).

Oh my dear goodness, yesterday afternoon was, by far, the scariest moment of my life. In a nutshell, Abilene consumed an unknown amount of anti-fungal liquid which lead to a 911 call, which lead to an ambulance ride to the hospital, which - in the end - lead to a "She's going to be just fine" diagnosis.

So that's the gist if you're in a rush and don't want to read more. It won't hurt my feelings, I promise. It's rather embarrassing that the whole event happened in the first place but I want to remember it because it's part of our story now so I'm going to go ahead and type it all out even if it's just for me.

So here goes:

We're living in an apartment right now that is providing for all our needs (thank you Jesus) but it isn't exactly the most kid friendly place. None of the doors inside the apartment close, we have to worry about chips of lead paint, and every once in a while Abilene finds an invisible nail sticking out of the carpet with her hands as she's crawling. That being said, yesterday afternoon, Abilene was playing in the hubs and I's closet as I was making pizza dough in the kitchen.

Abilene does this a lot, it doesn't really bother me. There's nothing in there that she could really get into (or so I thought) and she likes to hide objects she finds in the closet in our shoes. I can see the closet from the kitchen and it's usually a nice distraction for her while I try and get dinner made.

Shortly after I had placed the pizza dough in the oven to rise (don't worry, it wasn't turned on), I heard Abilene let out a little whimper. And very quickly that whimper turned into a cry and then that cry turning into a "this hurts really bad" cry. Moms, you know what that sounds like and it's the worst sound in the world. I go over to Abilene, asking her what's wrong and she puts her hand to her mouth. I don't see anything in her mouth but she keeps pointing at her mouth and she starts crying harder. I'm getting nervous because I still can't see anything and I'm wondering if she's swallowed something sharp. I look into the closet and see an open bottle of anti-fungal liquid spilled out on the floor. Immediately, I know that's what she's crying about. My heart starts pounding and my stomachs goes into more knots than a middle school girl's friendship bracelet. "What have I done to my little girl?"

I grab the bottle and I grab Abilene and rush to my phone. I had yet to put New York's poison control number into my phone (I know I probably could have called Pennsylvania's but, in the moment, I was too scared to rationalize that thought) and I felt that looking it up on the internet would take too long. I had no idea how dangerous anti-fungal liquid could be, I just knew that Abilene was screaming and it seemed like it was burning her mouth. In my moment of fear, a 911 call seemed like the fastest solution.

I've never called 911 before. My hands were shaking so bad that I could barely punch the numbers into my phone. I was petrified. The dispatcher was very calm (I guess that's their job, right) but Abilene's crying was so loud, I was having a hard time getting him to hear my answers to his questions. I had to put Abilene down and walk to the other side of the room to give him my information. I hated putting her down. I didn't want to let go of her for a second. She's so little. Her stomach's so small and I had no idea what was going on inside of her. The unknowns of the situation were almost paralyzing.

The dispatcher says that someone is on their way so I grab Abilene's diaper bag, some water and I head out the front door. I wanted to be there as soon as the ambulance arrived. All I wanted to do was get to the hospital, get to someone who might be able to tell me what the next step was. As we were waiting for the ambulance, Abilene's cries stop. I start praying like crazy as I try and get her to drink some water - hoping it will dilute whatever might be in her stomach. My hands are still trembling and I'm not making it very easy for her but she's able to drink a little bit.

Pretty soon I hear the sirens. It was scary to know they were for Abilene. Sirens have never been for me or my family before, always for someone else and I've never wanted to be that someone else. The sirens start getting louder and I'm staring at the intersection they should be coming from like a hawk. Finally, I see the ambulance and, to my horror, they turn the wrong direction onto our street. My heart was racing as watch the ambulance disappear around the bend. "How long will it take them to realize that the building numbers are going in the wrong direction? Do I call 911 again? Do I run down to get them? How long should I wait?" I'm sick at the thoughts of what may be going on in Abilene's tiny belly.

The sirens become louder and I know that the ambulance has turned around. I see them come back around the bend and I'm ready as soon as they stop in front of our apartment. The paramedic asks me if I know what she ingested and I immediately hand him the bottle. He takes us inside the ambulance and actually straps both myself and Abilene into the stretcher. "There are no other seat belts in the ambulance and this is the best place for you to be according to NY state protocol," he says.

The ambulance is still sitting in front of our apartment while the paramedic takes down some of our information. Half of me understood that they have reasons for doing what they do and that I should trust him but the other half of me had no idea why he couldn't ask me these questions on the way to the hospital.

We literally live like 3 minutes from the hospital so it doesn't take us long to get there. On our way, he radios in our situation and I hated hearing the words "13 month old..." "chemical substance..." "ingested." It was becoming harder for me to hold back the tears.

We arrive at the hospital and are walked into an exam room. Abilene seems to be acting normal. On the inside, I'm basically a basket-case. One of the paramedics gives Abilene a little stuffed bunny to play with as the nurses take our information. Everyone is so calm. I know that they need to be and that Abilene wasn't exhibiting any need for them to rush but oh, how I wanted them to move faster. My voice is trembling as I answer their questions and tears start running down my face. Someone hands me a box of tissues that Abilene proceeds to stuff in her mouth. "Great," I think. "Show them how well I am at keeping things out of your mouth, why don't you?"

A policeman comes in to ask me a couple questions. I know why he's there. I know it's to make sure Abilene's safe with me at home. Is she? Because I clearly didn't do a good job of it in the last 15 minutes. I know it was an accident. I know it happens to other people and I know I had no need to fear him or his questions. I knew that the situation wouldn't result in child-services taking Abilene away from me but it sucked. It sucked to even be in that room having to explain what happened. It sucked knowing that - had I known the bottle was in the closet (it hadn't been used since last year) - I could have kept Abilene from being in this whole situation. I was scared, I was embarrassed and, most of all, I still didn't know whether or not Abilene was going to be okay.

A physicians assistant came in to check over Abilene. She didn't find anything that caused her alarm and said that she would be back after they talked with poison control. I pulled toys out of the diaper bag and tried to call Brad through the camp phone line. Straight to voice mail. I had forgotten it was Sunday. I hated using camp's emergency phone but I pushed the extension for it anyway. The call was forwarded to our friend Marshall who happened to not be on camp that day. His suggestion was to call two other friends who were on camp in order to hopefully get in touch with Brad. One phone wasn't on and the other rang through to voice mail. I knew Brad's cell phone would be off but I tried nonetheless. No answer. It would still be another hour until he was finished working.

Luckily, our friend Jon (the number I had called that rang through to voice mail), saw that he had a missed call from me and told Brad he should call me back. Not even 5 minutes later, my phone rings. It's Brad and he immediately asks if I'm okay. How do I tell him that Abilene has chemicals in her stomach and I don't know if she's going to be okay or not? It doesn't matter, as soon as Brad hears the words "Abilene" and "ER," he says he's on his way.

The PA comes back in and says that poison control would potentially be concerned with two of the chemicals in the anti-fungal solution. One would involve a reaction on Abilene's skin around her mouth and lips that, if it were bad, would be causing them to turn blue. No blue so Abilene seemed fine in that arena. The other chemical would affect Abilene's breathing and she should simply be watched for about a half an hour. Since it had almost been half an hour at that point, the PA didn't see any cause for concern. "She's probably going to be just fine," she said.

The doctor comes in just to take a final look at Abilene. He's very nice and very reassuring. Abilene seems to be doing well and the hospital sees no need for her to stay any longer. I'm told to simply watch for any discrepancies in her breathing or vomiting throughout the rest of the day but, unless those things were to happen, she was probably okay. "Do you want us to make a make-shift cap for the (anti-fungal) bottle so you can take it home with you?" he asks. Um, never in a million years, thank you very much.

I was relieved but still had too much adrenaline pumping through my body to be calmed down. I never knew such good news could be so hard to physically process. Abilene crawls in the lobby while I follow her around, trying to wipe mascara off my face. After about 5 minutes, Brad walks through the lobby doors. He picks Abilene up as I tell him that she's going to be okay. Then he puts his arm around me and I shove my face into his chest. Pent up adrenaline turns to tears and I start crying again. Nothing feels as good as when Brad says, "It's going to be okay."

After I pull myself back together, we decide we're going to walk home. That's how close we live to the hospital. Thanks to the ambulance, I clearly didn't have the Jeep and the Vibe that Brad drove from camp didn't have the car seat in it. We could have easily had one of us drive the Vibe back to pick up the car seat (it would have taken all of 10 minutes) but Brad thinks the walk would be good for us - for me.

He was right. It only took us about half an hour and allowed me to process and calm down. The weather was beautiful and the Adirondack air is always so clear. It was just what I needed.

On our way back, Jimmy and Mama (a couple that works with the hubs at camp) drove by. They had heard that Abilene was in the ER before they left camp and stopped to asks us if we were okay.

We also passed Candice, coming back from a run. Having no idea where we were coming from, she asked if we were on a nice, Sunday afternoon walk. Um, not exactly. She asked if she could do anything after we told her where we had been.

Not knowing we were already cleared to leave the ER, Jon sent Brad a text asking us if we needed him to bring some dinner to the hospital. Ironically, at that point, the pizza dough I had placed in the oven to rise just before this whole fiasco started, was probably just right. No need for dinner.

Wow, did I feel so loved. The whole process was just under two hours and, other than Brad, I hadn't told anyone else about it. Everyone's offer to help simply came from Brad's short, "Abilene's in the ER, I'm going to the hospital," statement just before he left camp. You definitely can't hide anything in a small town but I don't want to. Life's better when it's lived transparently.

God protected Abilene's bitty body. I am so thankful.

There are so many other things that could have happened. Other ways that the situation could have played out. A call to poison control would have probably yielded watching Abilene at home for signs of blue lips or skin and trouble breathing but, in hindsight and in the same situation, I would have done it the same way all over again.

Abilene fell asleep just after 8pm last night and I held her until we went to bed at 10. After an afternoon like that, I just didn't want to let her out of my arms.

God is so faithful. He is so good.

So far, today is a much better day than yesterday and if you're wondering, Upstate New York's poison control number is 1-800-222-1222.


UPDATE: I've since learned that the Poison Control Number (1-800-222-1222) is a National Number. Each state does not have a different poison control number to call. Not sure why I didn't know that but good news to know!