Why is it I start these blog posts and then don’t finish them? This was about four weeks ago now.
We have our morning routine down to a fine art. Jaxon is embarrassingly good at sleeping so when he doesn’t sleep right we know something is up. So it was definitley unexpected that we’d be going in an ambulance.
We woke up this morning and could hear him coughing. At first, it was one or two barking coughs and we thought that was it. Then it was a few more so Chris went in to check on him. When Chris hadn’t come back I got up too. Jaxon was wheezy and has this barking cough. He wasn’t right so we rang 111.
Jaxon was awake and alert so ringing 999 seemed a little excessive. I answered all the questions from the lady on 111, was he awake? Could he speak? Was he turning blue or was his chest being sucked in? When she then said she was despatching an ambulance, I signed at Chris something like “Get dressed NOW!”. She then said the usual bits about making sure the door is unlocked and the paramedics can get themselves in, if one of us can’t get to the door and if Jaxon’s symptoms change at all callback or call 999.
As Chris was now dressed, he sat with Jaxon while I got dressed. We then all got downstairs and packed a bag, basically “If Jaxon gets admitted what do we need?” So there were things for us to do, snacks for Chris and I (That could be shared once Jaxon was cleared to eat). Also, chargers – if you don’t know how long you’re going to be, take your phone charger! Having done an unexpected overnight in the hospital with Jaxon, phone charger is definitely something that’s harder to get hold of (unlike food and drink!).
The paramedics arrived and were lovely. They asked Chris and I questions but always addressed Jaxon as his own person (so important right?). He takes after me and studied the heart monitor when they put the pulse oximeter on his finger. Between wheezy breathes he tried to read the numbers out loud. They also put the little pads EKG pads on his chest and feet to check other heart bits too. The paramedics listened to his chest (and then gave Jaxon the stethoscope to listen to his own heart and chest) and decided that yes the wheeze was in his chest and wasn’t just upper respiratory like croup. Whereas he’d been almost coughing as a way to try and clear the wheeze, by the time the paramedics were there he’d stopped coughing. Maybe after about 10-15 minutes, he did a couple of coughs and they discussed whether it actually was a bit of croup too.
They decided that they were going to give him a nebuliser treatment there and then to try and clear the wheeze. He definitely wasn’t happy about having the mask on his face but in true Jaxon style, he took it all in his stride and sat patiently. I think he had a small children’s mask on but it was slightly too small so didn’t fit on his face quite right – he might have looked silly but a bigger children’s one or even an adult one might have worked better!
While he had the treatment, they also took a heel prick for his blood sugar levels. The paramedic asked me did had we been through a heel prick before, I explained that we had when he was born so it’s no issue and that I’m sure it would be fine. I held Jaxon and kept talking to him while the paramedic did the heel prick. He did flinch a little but as usual, he was completely chilled. He looked like he might cry but actually didn’t – so brave!
Now comes the fun bit (well for Jaxon it was fun I’m sure!). As he’d had the treatment, the paramedics wanted to take him in to get him checked over and make sure there wasn’t anything worse going on. I carried him out to the ambulance as he didn’t have his socks or shoes on. When we got to the ambulance, the paramedics asked me to sit on the trolley (gurney is what it’s called on US medical dramas but I’m not sure that’s what it is here!) and then to hold Jaxon, they would then restrain us both with a combination of the straps they use to restrain patients in transit. We didn’t go blues and twos which I think disappointed Jaxon a little! As it wasn’t a B&T kind of emergency and I was with Jaxon if anything changed, Chris finished getting ready for work so that he could go straight to work from the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital and the paramedics got us signed in before sending us through to the paediatric waiting room. Jaxon was the only child in there for a while and we were seen fairly quickly in the end.
We were seen by a nurse who gave Jaxon a once over to make sure the stats from home versus now were either matching or improved. We were then sent back to the waiting room and waited to be seen by the doctor.
While we had been seen by the nurse, Chris was on his way from where he’d park the car and met us in the waiting room. I was a little worried that we could end up waiting ages for the doctor but thankfully it wasn’t too long even though it was longer than when we waited for the nurse.
We were seen by the doctor and discharged as Jaxon was back to normal again and the doctor couldn’t see anything wrong so obviously the nebuliser had done it’s job. Chris dropped us at the supermarket on his way through town then he went to work. We then walked a different route through the park to get to knitting group.
That was a bit of a dramatic start to a Monday morning but so thankful that things weren’t worse, which they could have been. Once again so grateful for the lovely NHS staff taking care of us and making sure we were all well.
