2 Emergency Room Visits...

in less than a week. And we aren't talking simple stitches or a broken bone. Much scarier.

First ER Visit:

Saturday:

Alexis was playing in her soccer game all of 5 minutes. She was doing great. She had just scored. Then she got the ball again and crossed it. We all watched where the ball went and then out of the corner of my eye I see Alexis sprinting towards me on the side-line in the middle of game play.

I looked up and she is HYSTERICALLY crying but no sound is coming from her and she is grabbing her lower right back. Chad and I were sitting in our chairs. She ran full speed into my chest. I held her and kept asking her what happened but she was crying so hard (still no sound) I couldn't get her to answer me.

This is NOT normal. Alexis can be kicked, slide tackled and NOTHING fazes her on the field. She's fierce. But something happened and I couldn't figure it out. So Chad and I looked to the ref and the coaches to see if they saw what happened. But because it happened after she crossed it everyone else followed where the ball went.

This is where it gets SCARY.

So as they are telling us they didn't see it either...I hear loud SNORTING coming from Alexis. She buried her face in my shoulder when she ran to me and never came back up. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her away from me to see her eyes staring straight ahead. A few more snorts. And then GONE! She was un-conscious and she wasn't breathing. But her eyes were still open staring into space. I took my right hand and grabbed her jaw and screamed, "BREATHE, ALEXIS, BREATHE!"

I laid her on the ground and she started coming too. By this time, everyone hears me scream at her and realizes there is a problem. Our team Mom was a EMT and had some stuff with her. She put an ice pack on her forehead and was asking her all sorts of questions as she was coming to.

Most people stood back and watched us as we knelt around her on the sideline. But the team mom from the OTHER team came over with CUBES of ice. (Never mind we have an ice pack on her forehead already and we are trying to get her to answer questions. Important ones.)

So, this other lady starts RUBBING ice cubes all over Alexis' face. Around her cheeks, neck, ears...etc. Then she did the most OBNOXIOUS thing of all. Pretend you are talking to a 3 month old baby trying to get it to smile. Now take that high pitched baby voice and say this as you are rubbing ICE CUBES straight on a 5 year old's face....

"Oh, honey. You are just dehydrated. Yes, you are. You are such a good girl. Yes, you are. I saw you score your goal. You did so good. Yes, you did. You're Mommy is going to buy you ice cream after this. Yes, she is."

During, this time...I am thinking: Lady, you are CRAZY. Ice cream, really. You are promising her ice cream. Why not Disneyland? Do you really think she needs bribery at a time like this? Come on, it's not like she purposely had a seizure-like passing-out episode. Seriously, she was NUTS! But, I got that hint when I first walked up to the game and EVERY parent on your team...Mom's and Dad's had silk screened shirts with the girls team name and logo "Purple Panthers." Oh, and you are spanned around both side-lines...blocking our view of the game occasionally. ANNOYING!

I looked to see where Carter was and he was kneeling on the other side of Alexis' just staring at her. But, back to Alexis. She is screaming, "It hurts. It hurts."

I wanted to say, "What hurts, Alexis? Your back or the FREAKIN' ICE CUBES this crazy lady is rubbing all over your face."

So, I ask them to start the game and we move her to the shade as she is recovering. Gave her some food. Her hands are shaking like crazy but she seems to be ok.

We drive her to the ER to make sure everything is ok. They diagnose her with having had a vaso-vegal response. Basically, it's super common among kids. They think she might have had a back spasm when she crossed the ball. It caused her so much pain her body focused on that and her heart slowed down in the process to focus on the problems. That caused her snorting and passing out. I have a sister that had seizures all growing up so the staring off into space freaked me out. When she stopped breathing I expected her eyes to roll back and lips turn blue. But that didn't happen. Luckily, it was a freak thing. It could happen again but it may not. If it does they will do neurological testing but for now she is fine. Nothing genetic. No heart problem. And the snorting got explained to me and that is what threw me off the most. It reminded me of when I found my cousin, Jeff, snorting, foaming at the mouth and un-conscious from doing pyramids behind a boat at Lake Powell. His was carbon monoxide poisoning. But still, the snorting is the first thing and it freaked me out. Freaked me out so much I kept slapping his unconscious face telling him to breath. Hey, I'm learning. I didn't slap Alexis. Sorry, Jeff...I was inexperienced.

Crazy thing is 6 months ago when my sister, Mindy, was at the end of her pregnancy she had one of these vaso-vegal responses at work. No one knew that at the time. But she started feeling sick. She went to lay down in an open room. We work for our brother and he was sitting next to her when she had the episode. He thought she was having a seizure, too. Weird. But, apparently, not genetic.

Second ER visit:

Last night, we get a call from Chad's mom who has gone to Big Bear because Chad's Grandma is feeling sick. We talk with her and they are at the hospital because his Grandma never complains and they are monitoring her. Chad's mom is a nurse and wasn't too worried. But they are keeping an eye on her.

I put the kids to bed and Alexis says, "Mom, can we please write a get well card to Big Bear Grandma when we wake up."

I thought, "That's weird. Nothing's really wrong. Other family members and friends have been sicker they've never wanted to write a get well card."

But I just said, "Sure" and dismissed my thoughts of them being overly concerned.

A few hours later, Chad gets a call from his Dad. His Grandma is in intensive care. So, he asks me to start making arrangements for the kids in the morning since he usually has them while I'm at work at 6:30am. I start trying to figure out how I'm going to do this when I leave so early and am talking with friends and family.

Then Chad gets another call while I'm talking with my friend, Natalie, to see if she will help me. He walks in the room and has tears running down his face. The ER doctor doesn't think his Grandma is going to make it through the night. I asked him if he wanted me there. He said, "Yes." So, I make some more phone calls. Get my sister, Jillyn, to work for me. Only, she can't start till 8am because she has 6 kids she has to get out the door for school. So I get permission from my brother to cancel my first two patients. Luckily, our secretary moved 200 yards from our office. I call her. It's 10:30pm by now. She leaves her kids sleeping and walks down to get the patients numbers for me. I called and woke up both my patients but they were so understanding. We carried the kids to Natalie's to spend the night and took off to Big Bear.

By the time we get there...his Grandma is doing significantly better. She has CHF (Cardiac Heart Failure) and after tests all night found out she had a CHF episode and not a heart attack. Which is good news for her recovery and less damage to the heart.

But, it was so scary for Chad's mom. When everything seemed fine earlier in the evening she went back to feet his Grandma's cat after she insisted she go. She was feeding it when she gets a call from Chad's Aunt Marilyn that something went really wrong and his Grandma couldn't breathe. By the time Chad's mom got back to the hospital his Grandma was gurgling for a breath. Her lungs had filled with fluid, her heart rate sky rocketed, and her blood pressure was down to 60/20. She told the doctor he better tell her like it is because she is a nurse. And that's when he said, "We won't know for sure what's happened till morning and that's IF she makes it through the night."

When we got there she was finally sleeping and doing better. It had taken a while for things to get better. After her episode she was super confused thinking Chad's sister lived in San Bernadino and that I had my baby. It was scary and super emotional since we are so close to his Grandma. If she would have been at home when this all took place there is no way she would have made it. Luckily, she was already at the hospital and hooked up to IV's and they were able to pump medication into her to save her life. She is better. Still in the hospital and coming down here to see a specialist once she is stable so they can further evaluate things. We are hoping a virus set this off and it's not her CHF getting worse.

I called to thank everyone that helped us when we got home today. I called, my sister, Jillyn to thank her for working for me and she said, "I think you have a curse on Grandma's." I was confused. She then said, "After, you left we found out in the middle of the night that Curt's Grandma died." (Curt is her husband) I felt so bad but she was so nice about it all knowing how close we are to Chad's Grandma.

We are so grateful to our family and friends for being so kind. Everyone on Alexis' soccer team emailed me after her scare. People were calling us making sure we were ok. Then last night my family and Natalie took on so much at 10:30 at night so I could be with Chad. I hate going through these experiences but we definitely come out of it all with so much greater of an appreciation for life. For family. For friends. For what truly matters. And we are definitely grateful to KNOW families are forever and it doesn't end here.