The One Where My Baby Ate Glass

Scene:

Friday morning.  I’m upstairs making beds.  Andy is in the kitchen getting ready to head out to work.  He sets out to make himself a sandwich for lunch, and realizes we are out of jelly in the fridge…so he goes to the pantry to find another jar.

Andy’s standing in the pantry looking up at the top shelf (where we would keep jelly back ups).  Owen crawls up between his legs and suddenly starts crying.

Andy looks down to see a broken jar of baby food on the floor and Owen covered in pureed spaghetti…

Upstairs, I hear Owen cry and then Andy calls my name…he has this peculiar tone when he says my name and something is very seriously wrong.  It’s the same tone he’s used to call for me when Jill is having a seizure.  It’s the I’m-trying-to-not-panic-but-I-really-need-you-to-get-here-NOW tone.  Jill was off at summer school by now so I knew it wasn’t her…I rushed downstairs, and about halfway down, I heard O’s cries stop abruptly.  Like, because he was choking abruptly.

Owen had seen the broken jar of food and thought it was delicious looking.  Being a baby, he obviously had no idea there was also shards of glass mixed in with that food.  And he managed, in a split second, with his dad literally centimeters away, to scoop up a handful and shove it in his mouth.

All in a split second.

Owen’s cries had stopped because he was choking.

ON GLASS.

I immediately swept my finger through his mouth and found bits of glass…but he was still choking.  Like, truly, for real, CHOKING.

ON GLASS.

I yelled for Andy to call 911.

Owen was beginning to turn purple.

Because he was choking ON GLASS.

I immediately started doing the baby Heimlich.

And all I could think of was that my baby was going to die from choking on GLASS.

Baby choking = awful.

Baby choking to death = horrific.

Baby to choking to death from glass = whole other level.

It was bad.

I was freaking out.

I must have managed to dislodge the piece because he started spitting and screaming and then coughing up blood.

Bright, red blood.

I did another finger sweep in his mouth and pulled out a piece of glass that was about the size of a nickel.

And my baby kept hacking and screaming in pain and more blood.

He calmed down after a few minutes, and was decently happy by the time the ambulance got to my house.

They checked him out, and even though he was acting fine, wanted to take him to the emergency room for an evaluation.  We didn’t know if he had swallowed a piece, if it had cut/punctured anything on the way down…if it would do damage coming out…or if he had aspirated any into his lungs.  TERRIFYING.

Thoughts of emergency surgeries danced in my head.

At one point, the EMT stops…looks around my living room…”Wait…have I been here before?  But for a little girl…”

“Yup.  Different kid.”

Yeah.  I should get his name.  Invite him over for tea.  Sigh.

I thanked the guys for coming, and told them I would be taking him myself.  If the ambulance comes to your house and doesn’t actually transport, it’s free.  If they transport, it’s very expensive.  Very.  A lot.  Since Owen was “okay”, even smiling, and we live only 3 miles from the hospital, I opted to drive him myself.  For those of you who don’t ride ambulances on a regular basis, this might seem horrifying to you.  For those of you who have medical bills stacked inches high on your desk, you get this.  Some of you will still judge me for this decision.  I know.  I would have judged myself too.

So I speed to the hospital, park, and run to the entrance.

And the door won’t open.

What the heck?

I’m looking all around, stamping the ground, looking for a handle…and then I see it: Ambulance Entrance.

Oh.  Right.

Because I’ve never been to the emergency room without having been driven there with wailing sirens.

Of course.

A hospital worker sees me and yells that the entrance is over here…on this side of the building.

Right.

Because there is a different entry for normal people.

I had no idea.

And honestly, that made me feel really sorry for myself.

The ER was empty. PTL.

The nurses asked me what was wrong, and I stood there holding my happy smiling baby and tried to convey how terrifying just the last 15 minutes were.

This is what he looked like upon arriving to the ER.

Every time I said “He ate glass and was choking on it.” The first words of reply were “GLASS?!  How on earth did he eat glass???”

Yeah, I know.  It’s crazy.  Because HE’S crazy.

It was fairly obvious he wasn’t in any immediate danger, but we had no idea if there was internal damage already done, or at risk for happening as things got moving around.

An x-ray showed no glass, punctures, large cuts, or anything else.

I finally exhaled and Praised.

I was told to keep a close eye on him though since it can be difficult to see glass in an x-ray…but that overall, he was probably fine.

Long story short, Owen is ridiculous speedy fast.

And had a very expensive snack.

And he is obviously just training for a career in the circus.

O-Bo the Great Glass Eater.

{I can obviously joke about it now, but in those minutes in my kitchen, it was horrifying.  That kid…I’m pretty sure I’m 10 years older.}

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jeannett

I'm a mom to four. A wife to one. I believe in story. I love telling you about mine and would love to hear yours. There's really no sense in wasting our suffering and not sharing in each other's joy. We're all in this together...even if it doesn't always feel like it.

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