Valve oil. Looks innocent enough, doesn't it. Goose plays the euphonium (its like a tuba) and uses the valve oil to keep the valves moving easily. Cinderelly on the other hand, uses valve oil to scare her mother half to death. Here's the story.
A couple weeks ago, I was outside with Twister and Cinderelly in the front yard. The older kids were still in school. Twister went inside and Cinderelly followed him. I finished up what I was doing and walked in a few minutes behind them. I walked in to see Cinderelly with valve oil in her hand, but she was coughing like she was choking on something. First I thought maybe it was the cap, but it was in her hand. I put the valve oil aside and kept patting her back trying to help her dislodge whatever was making her cough so badly. She must have been coughing for 10 minutes. When she finally stopped, she still didn't seem to be acting right, so I went to grab the valve oil to see what it was made of. "May be harmful if ingested". Great. So, I called poison control to see what I needed to do. I really wasn't sure if she had swallowed any of it, and I really thought her coughing fit was due to swallowing something, however, the first question the poison control lady asked was if she had been coughing at all. Uh, YEA! She proceded to tell me to go to the ER. I said my kids would be home from school in about 20 minutes, could I wait? Her answer was that in that case I should call 911. Well, there was no WAY I was going to call 911 and have them come take my baby away while I sat home waiting a couple extra minutes for my kids to get home. So, luckily, I have awesome parents who live nearby. Goose got home within 5 minutes of hanging up with Poison control, so I left Twister with him until my Mom got there. I passed her car as I was driving off.
I still expected in the ER for them to watch her and send us home. In fact, that's what they told me they would likely do. The danger with valve oil is that it contains something that is harmful if it is inHALED, not ingested. Since she had been coughing, they took a chest x-ray right away, and we sat and waited. At first she was timid, then she seemed to start feeling a little better. Not long after, she didn't seem right again. She was feeling a little warm, and she was just snuggling up to me. Not normal for this 2 year old! Next up, unexpected throw up. Nice. Since throwing up can cause aspiration, that earned us an overnight stay in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
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| In the ER, starting to feel warm... |
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| In the PICU, hooked up to a million monitors and the IV |
Shortly after that, her x-ray came back looking, not perfect, but not like what they would expect for aspiration. And she came down with a fever. The PICU team was great though, they talked me through the best and worse case scenarios and watched her all night long. The fever kept making it look like she might be in respiratory distress, so getting that down was a priority. And actually, once they got it down, things kept looking better as time went on. A second x-ray at 2am, was unchanged from the previous. Her temp stabilized and her respirations improved without the fever. So, by morning, we were discharged. What a rollercoaster. I do have to say though, that for as crazy and scary as that all sounds, I had a peace throughout the whole experience that let me know that she was going to be just fine. When we were admitted, I had this distinct feeling that we had many prayers being said for us. It was a really unique, calming experience in the middle of what should have been chaos. I am so grateful for that peace, and of course, that she is just FINE.
So, to lighten the feeling, I'll show you what I've been working on with my girls.
See those houses, those are FAIRY houses! :) I did the first one with my girls, then handed over the gluegun for Sweetie and her cousins to do another one. Theirs will stay at my Mom's house in her blossoming fairy garden. This is what ours looks like. Actually it has even more stuff already, but these are the pics I have:
I still want more green in there... :) But we are working on it slowly. Little pieces at a time, it is becoming a magical place. I love it when the girls take their little polly dolls and play out there. :) Super fun.
