Today's prompt has been inspired by the novel The Doctor and the Diva.
Has anything traumatic ever happened to you? Describe the scenes surrounding a particular event.
For inspiration, I checked out the definition of traumatic
(love Google!).
- Emotionally disturbing or distressing.
- Relating to or causing psychological trauma.
The most recent traumatic event I had was having one of my daycare children (age 2) require me to perform CPR on him. Thank goodness my mother was visiting so I wasn't alone!
We were playing in the backyard ("C" and my two children who were then ages 2 and 3) when C started to look as though he was falling asleep. I took him inside to change his diaper and as I laid him down he seemed to fall asleep (very unusual for him). I tried to wake him up as something just didn't seem right. He got grayish and his lips were purple. I picked him up, brought him to my mother who was outside and called to her. I laid him on the ground. At this point he was a limp noodle and I knew I had to check his vitals. As he was so little I checked his breathing and tried to get his pulse. I couldn't find it but his neck was so small it was hard to get my finger to properly check.
I vividly remember my mother freaking out and asking if she should call 911 while I muttered to myself the CPR counts in my head and deciding if I should or not. I decided to give breaths and start CPR and after one set of compressions he started to flutter his eyes. I stopped and he passed out again. I did more breaths and one more round of compressions and he woke up. I got him revived before 911 even picked up the phone on their end.
The release of being unconscious made the poor fellow poop his diaper but I was afraid to change it before the ambulance attendants arrived. When they said we should take him to the hospital I asked if I could change his diaper and I was so nervous doing such an otherwise normal task.
One of the ambulance guys asked for details on compressions and breaths, etc. and I told him I had just renewed my CPR six weeks ago and that there were new counts so I did those. He started to argue with me that the counts were wrong. Another fireman stepped in and told him to let it go. Obviously what I had done worked. That part that I could have gotten the counts wrong upset me a lot.
In the ambulance I called C's mother. Once she got on the phone and I had to tell her I had to do CPR on him and we were headed to the hospital I broke down in tears. It was harder to put it into words I think.
Thankfully the little fellow was okay. The head of the pediatrics in the hospital looked at him and said he had a pre-existing condition that caused him to lose consciousness. Due to his young age the police came to investigate but, thankfully, I overheard the doctor say everything was on the up and up. That also was scary - that I could have been charged for saving his life.
I feel blessed that I was able to help C and I believe his family and I will have a long friendship as a result.Labels: just because