There's a first time for everything, right? Well, today it was our first time needing to call 911 for our daughter Payten. Yes, we have joined the 911 club and believe me, it is not as "cool" as it sounds!!!! Before I go any further with my story, Payten is okay. No transport to the hospital was necessary. Now let me explain what happened, Payten pulled her trach out sometime during the early morning, without us knowing. You may think, Well, how is that possible? She is on a ventilator, wouldn't the vent go off and alarm you that her trach was out? And to be honest with you, those are very good questions and thoughts. Yes, you would think that the ventilator would alarm us, that it would let us know, aah, excuse me your daughter just pulled out her trach! Get over here! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
But in all actuality, if a child who is on a ventilator, pulls out their trach, while still attached to the ventilator and it happens to land on the chest with the trach hole touching the chest or a blanket, etc., it will not alarm at all, because the machine is still reading that the trach is intact. Yes, I know, that is pretty crappy and a little dangerous, but it is what it is and that is why it is important to be aware and periodically check on the child. Well, obviously, we did not do our periodic check, because we were dead to the world from exhaustion and Payten did indeed pull her trach out for who knows how long.
Joseph tried for a little while to get it back in before coming and frantically waking me up to ask if we had trach sizes smaller than 4.0. Which I responded, Yes, we should have a few smaller sizes. Which followed with me jumping out of bed to go on a rampage, looking for smaller trach's. And to my surprise realized all of our smaller size trach sizes had been used a few weeks ago, when a similar incident happened. Yes, Payten does this often! Usually, we are aware when it happens, but there are those few times, when we are not aware and those are the times we need smaller sizes, because the hole in the trachea closes quickly!!!!
I, after realizing we did not have any smaller sizes and assuming that Joseph had tried EVERYTHING, (which is not a good thing to do, by the way!), yells at Joseph, Call 911, we need help. So Joseph calls 911 and our local fire department gets there within 3 minutes of the phone call! Can we say rapid response! Heck yeah!!!! It was totally awesome how quick they were! Anyways, back to the story, the first thing out of one of the fire men's mouths was, Did you happen to use lubricant when trying to put the trach back in? Joseph, ummm, No, I don't even think we have lubricant. Me, aah, yes we do! So I run over, grab the lubricant, Joseph applies it to the trach and walla, the trach slides right in!
Now, let me give you a little history on lubricant, Joseph and I have had opposing opinions on whether lubricant was necessary or not during trach changes/replacements. His opinion being that he believed it was an unnecessary step in the trach changing/placement process and mine being that I felt it was necessary, because I believed it made it easier to place/put the trach back in! Now I am not telling you all this, because I want to prove I'm right, your wrong! Ne'er, Ne'er, Ne'er!!!! Rather, I am giving this background, so that you may all understand my inner frustration with myself, for "ASSUMING" that Joseph had done EVERYTHING that I would have done. Understand? Hopefully. I am kind of angry at myself for not stepping in before calling 911 and trying to place the trach myself, because I would have used lubricant and then we would have avoided a phone call to 911. And a moment of feeling really dumb!
So I guess Joseph and I both learned some valuable lessons, Joseph learned the importance of using lubricant when placing a trach and I learned the importance of not assuming, rather doing what I know to be right and then when that fails me, calling for help. I really do feel a little stupid, but I know that we had our daughters best interest at heart. I also learned that I am not a very nice person during a stressful emergency and Joseph is very indecisive (not a good mix, by the way! We will definitely be working on this! LOL!) I guess we both have some things to work on right?!
All in all it was a good thing, because now we know our local fire department and they know us and we will be better prepared for the next time this happens, which could be this afternoon with as much as this child pulls her trach out!!!! What a way to start a Saturday, adrenaline!!!! I recommend this at least once in your lifetime, NOT! Hopefully everyone Else's Saturday is not as eventful as ours started out being! I am just grateful that Payten is okay.
Before I go, I want to share another lesson that I learned, which is not to ignore the intuition or little voice inside you, telling you go check on your daughter, she pulled her trach out, because that happened, early this morning that impression came upon me and I ignored it and by doing so, we had these fun filled events happen, when they could have been avoided if I would have just listened to that simple, yet powerful impression. So I guess I learned two valuable lessons this morning, 1) Never assume and 2) always follow your intuition. I believe today has been a successful day in the book of life! We are learning! Yes, we may not be the best at this thing called life, but we are learning, and therefore believe we are doing something right! Just a thought! Happy day to you all!
