First trip to the ER

Max is happily playing on the floor beside me right now. All is well now, or I don't think I would be able to write about our Friday night nightmare.

Just before 10:30pm, I discovered Max in his bed covered in white vomit and hardly moving. I snatched him up and started to take his feetie pajama off of him while walking into the light of the bathroom and calling my mother from my blackberry. Max wouldn't open his eyes but gagged and threw up. I took a photo with my blackberry to send to my mom to show her how strange he looked. Then, I couldn't tell if he was breathing. From that point I'm not sure how I got to the Emergency Room at Natchez Regional because I drove there with Max in my arms, yelling his name, yelling at God to help me, pounding Max on the back and breathing into his mouth. Max was completely unresponsive to me except for one more vomit halfway there. I screamed at the locked ER doors. I screamed at the nurses who were calmly asking me what my lifeless baby's name was... I've never been so panicked in my entire life as I thought I was losing my precious son.

When I handed Max over to the nurses, they must have done a number of things, but the thing I remember is they checked his oxygen level. At that point he seemed to wake up a little even though he was still gray yellow. His little lips were pale. He reminded me of Maggie (my grandmother) just moments after she passed away. Somehow, his oxygen level was 100%. I was shocked and elated. His temperature was 97.4 degrees. Everything they tested, the results were good news. Marcus's mother and step-dad got to the ER just a few minutes after me, because somehow I managed to call her as I was getting in the car. I was so relieved to see them.

Max slowly came back to his old self over the next few hours without any treatment other than a bottle of Infalyte (Pedialyte for infants). We were there until 4am with the doctor saying he either aspirated or had a seizure. My little brother, Andrew, texted me that he and his friends at Baylor University started praying for Max when my dad sent the lone text, "Max at hospital. Pray!" My dad is lovingly infamous for these sort of inflammatory messages. But at that point I realized and told Andrew, "God drove me to the hospital!" Because honestly, who was steering and watching the road the ten minutes it took to get to the ER?

Max had his first word at the ER when they were putting the i.v. tubes in. "Mmmmmma! MMMMa! Mama!" He was looking right at me as I was holding him down and he was yelling, "Mama!" I hadn't cried up until that point, but that first word at that moment just opened the flood gates.

Saturday morning, Max woke up at 8am literally roaring like a tiger. It had been his new sound that week, and he woke up just roaring and laughing like he hadn't missed a beat or a night of sleep. We took a bath because we were both still caked with vomit. I don't think either of us had ever been so happy in the bath together. I just had to take a picture.