Tuesday, September 8, 2015

The ER Debacle.

Today, Blake and I went through one of those scary parenting ordeals that is the stuff of nightmarish articles that anxiety ridden moms share on Facebook. In the literal one to two minutes that Adeline was out of Blake and I's sight, she managed to climb onto a countertop and open a "child-proof" bottle of medicine and took about fifteen to twenty pills. Poison control instructed us to drive to the nearest emergency room, which was 30-40 minutes away in Shawnee (you probably don't want to know how quickly Blake got us there). First, let me start off with that she is totally fine now, she's just going to probably sleep the rest of the day and keep me awake all night. I totally don't care about pulling an all-nighter with my toddler after today. We are going to party and praise Jesus that the worst thing happening from this is drowsiness after an appropriate amount of vomiting.

I'm going to spare you the details of when it happened, freaked out phone calls, and all of the drama. The important thing is that she is okay, and honestly way tougher than any adult or almost adult I have ever seen in an emergency room. Seriously, she was amazing. Instead, I want to take this moment to decompress and brag on the community I work with at Willow Springs.

The doctors and nurses said she would probably feel too nauseated to eat anything, then she woke up and ate most of my lunch. 


Labor Day weekend was stressful for us. We had some things happen, including our AC quitting and, since it was labor day weekend, no way of getting it fixed until today: it was happily humming for us when we got home from the hospital (praaaaaise). Once it happened, we first called our family doctor's office. The nurses  called Poison Control right away and let me know they were praying for us and to call them if we needed anything else, and the man calling me from Poison Control was so calm and supportive, and called me a couple of times even after we had checked in at the hospital just to see if we were all okay. Our nurses at St. Anthony's were so reassuring and kind and compassionate. In just a matter of a few phone calls, our relief parents were able to take care of the guys getting rides from school. I was supposed to go grocery shopping today, but with this happening, I was trying to figure out what/when the guys would eat dinner, but our counselor offered to take them out to dinner and hang out with them until later this evening.

All this to say, in the moment, everything was chaotic and frightening. Once things settled down, though, I had a community of people around me who cared enough to be available and to help, which gave me the opportunity to do nothing but take care of Addie. Dear reader, I hope if you ever feel lonely that you can stop and look around and notice the community surrounding you. If you feel that you don't have one, start building it.

At one point today I jokingly told Blake that this wasn't a story we should tell anyone considering the vacant house parent position for the Mac House. But the more I thought about it, I realized this was the perfect story. The amazing thing about being a part of Willow Springs is not that things aren't ever going to go wrong, but that you're a part of a team that immediately leaps into action to work together when things do go wrong. No one complained about how inconvenient this was. No one left us to wade through the fear alone. Our community was happily and readily available to work together.

I shared a verse in another post earlier this year. "...so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well." I Thessalonians 2:8 (NIV) As much as this verse has been true for our family in our decision to be house parents, it is also so true of the community at Willow Springs. If you are praying about becoming house parents, know that you are not only entering into a ministry in which much will be required of you, but so much will be given.

Thank you, friends of Willow Springs, and thank you Willow Springs. We thank our God upon each remembrance of you.

We were supposed to stay for 10 hours, but she was doing so well that we got to go home four hours early. I have the best husband and the best kid ever. 

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