Our trip

Oh.
My.
Good.
Ness.

I’m sitting in the Emergency department with Annabelle right now, about ready to curl up on the blue tile floor and sleep, regardless of my non-pillow status.

What a week/weekend it has been!

A few weeks ago, my husband and I decided that we would, maybe, possibly, try to take our family on our first ever “trip” outside of Nashville with Annabelle. The doctors gave their blessing, Scott took vacation time from Lowes, and we were all set.

Our plan was to visit his parents for a few days, and surprise them AND our kids with the trip. My father-in-law was being thrown a “surprise” retirement party, so we thought we’d surprise both him and my mother-in-law with our appearance.

And our kids have been such good troopers this past year, we thought it’d be fun to surprise them too.

So, we SUPER excited this past week as we planned our secret.

Then Scott got his job. But they told him he could still take of Monday off (today, well, sorry, yesterday since it is now past mid-night!) So we altered our time-frame a little, still excited to go.

Then Annabelle broken her leg. But the orthopedic doctor said we were still okay to go, that she’d just be sitting in her carseat on the trip anyway so it wouldn’t hurt her. So we kept on with our secret plans.

Then Thursday night, Annabelle’s O2 sats dipped a LOT, causing us to put her back on oxygen for the night. But Friday morning, they were back to normal, and she was doing fine and was happy and smiling and playing. So we kept our plans, I packed the van, and surprised the girls by picking them up early from school.

All was fine, except Annabelle KEPT dipping her O2 sats all weekend, especially at night or during her nap. Last night (Sunday night) was the worst, as they went pretty low, and she was working much harder than normal to breathe.

And Monday morning, she didn’t rebound like she had the other mornings. So we loaded up the car, said goodbye to my inlaws (my poor mother-in-law was up all night with the stomach flu,s o we said our goodbyes from afar) and left.

Throughout the day, I had to keep going up on Annabelle’s oxygen. My worry level went through the roof. I called the clinic to see if we could get her appointment changed from Wednesday to Tuesday so we could have her checked out sooner than later, and the nurse noted that if she was having trouble breathing, we needed to stop and call an ambulance.

THEN I got really scared. I knew she was okay, as long as she was on the oxygen she was doing well. I told her we’d just come first thing in the morning, and she noted if we were worried enough to bring her first thing in the morning, we should go directly to the ER when we got into town.

So that is what we did.

And you know what?

My daughter is now resting nicely (on oxygen) at th ehospital, and they can’t find anything wrong with her so far.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am SO SO SO pleased that everything looks fine so far. Her labs were good. Her EKG was good. Her chest Xray looked even better than the last one she had a few months ago. We’ll do an ECHO in the morning to double check that.

I just… I’m just tired. And I want to not have to worry anymore. (Yes, Yes, Yes, I KNOW we aren’t supposed to worry… but that is so totally easier said than done when it comes to my 4 girls!)
I want to have a fun trip with my family and not bite my nails in fear the entire time that we’ll have to rush to the nearest Children’s hospital.

My sweet husband reminded me that this WAS just our first trip. It was bound to be the hardest and nerve wracking.

We did have fun though, when I wasn’t hyperventilating in worry. And Annabelle LOVED seeing her grandparents… loved listening to her papa sing to her and pick the guitar! (momma enjoyed too… NOTHING more relaxing than that!) And everyone was SO surprised, which made it great fun too!

Okay, I’m afraid I’m rambling on here, and my eyes are shutting by themselves. Praying we get a room SOON (they have one for us, thank GOD!) They are keeping us for observation tonight, they’ll decide more tomorrow once we see the echo results.

Thanks for your prayers! I’ll give more non-medical details of our trip later when I can keep my eyes open without using heavy-duty hospital supplies to keep them open.