Date Night ER

The kids have been playing Kid's Town outside all day today. Tonight it started getting dark around "mosquito time" (5pm - 7pm) but they braved the bugs and coat themselves in repellent so they could keep going with their game. Corey was still at work when I made them dinner. Hot dogs. They wanted to eat them outside at the Kid's Town "Restaurant". Ok. So I'm inside washing the dishes and Hyrum and Abi come in saying Wesley feels sick and is holding his stomach. I keep washing dishes and they go back out. Then I hear Hyrum come screaming that Wesley is choking and I hear kids screaming outside. I run out the kitchen door down the maid hall to the backyard where in the dark night and patio lights I see Wesley is being Heimlich-maneuvered by Ethan and the kids are in a panic. I'm attemping a full on sprint across the grass in my slip on shoes and then totally fall over my 8 month pregnant self onto the grass, scraping my arm on the grass and hitting my tummy on the ground. I get up, but as I go to his aid I trip again... the adrenaline of the moment is just too much apparently.

Third attempt I am able to stay upright and make it over to Wesley and I start to hit his back and Heimlich him (which doesn't work well with a pregnant belly). I keep hitting him hard as I hold him over. Kids are panicking and crying and praying and screaming "WESLEY!!!" and I try to see what his face is doing ~ after a few hits I ask "Can you breath?!?" He nods his head, but is still bent over with mucus dangling from his mouth and is still oviously uncomfortable and we hit him on the back some more. But he can breath so his trachea is clear... must be stuck in his esophagus. This happened before once at school - he had a big chunk of hamburger meat from lunch in his esophagus for several hours, from lunch until dinner time when it finally came out. It's something that happens to Corey every now and then, usually when I make a roast or when he doesn't chew his steak well enough. Happens to Corey's brother sometimes too. Well, it appears Wes has this condition, which is manifesting itself again through and apparently un-chewed hot dog lodged somewhere in there. Great.

So I call Corey to tell him to hurry home, I think we need to take Wes to the ER. He was still at work but left right away. And I also mention "Oh, and by the way, I also totally biffed it and fell on my stomach as I ran to help him, so I might need to go to the doctor too..." We continued to try and help Wesley. I gave him a little bowl to catch all the mucus from his clogged esophagus. He was just looking at us with a sad expression and his mouth hanging open - with a weird gurgling sound coming from the back of his throat. Corey called again and said the best thing was to try to work it down and that he'd be here asap. So I told Wes we'd take him to the doctor, but try to work it down as we waited. He kept trying to gag it up though - that's probably a more natural response, but Corey said not to do that, cause that is where the danger comes in, if the food goes up and then gets stuck in the airway. But Wes kept gagging and then after 5 minutes of all of us in the front room (looking out the window waiting for Corey) Wes gagged again, followed by a deep breath where he spoke clearly and with relief saying "It's out!" With the tension and the stress of the moment now passed, Ethan was finally able to relax and said as he started to tear up "Don't do that again! Chew your freaking food!" Abi was crying, Eth was crying, Mel and Hyrum were quiet and prayerful, and I sat down relieved and texted Corey "He got it out."

Ok, on to the next issue - the baby. I was a little distracted as I ran and didn't know how hard I hit my stomach. It didn't hurt and I didn't feel any more uncomfortable than normal, but twelve years ago, when I was pregnant with Hyrum, I fell and was told to go to the hospital where they monitored me for 24 hours. That time I was walking with arms full of stuff as we were going to spend a week in Park City, and I didn't see a curb and tripped and fell on the ground pretty hard without my arms helping to catch me as I fell. I was at like 36 weeks that time. My doctor then is the same one I'm going to now, I'm assuming I should do that again. I call his office, get a voice message to call the on call doctor. I call that number and give the answering service lady a message and wait for them to call back. Corey gets home and I'm ready to go when they call me back. The dr. says it would be recommended to go to the hospital - "Which hospital are you delivering at?" I tell her, but then add "...but we're in Brazil right now..." "You're where?" In Brazil. Yeah, so I can't run to the ER there, but I can go to one here. So Corey and I turn on a movie for the kids, he gives me a priesthood blessing, and then wait a few minutes for our friend Rafael to come and show us where a hospital is. He goes with us to the hospital - . He was so nice and stayed with us the whole time in case we needed help interpreting anything.

It was a nice hospital - the Hospital Geral e Maternidade Madre Maria Theodora. We didn't have too long of a wait, Corey paid R$200 reais then proceeded to give them all and any personal information they asked for, such as my parent's names (why they might need that I don't know), passport numbers (Corey did grab those, cause he's had experience and figured they'd probably ask for them), and Rafael gave them all of his information too, cause this is Brazil and they just love taking down information and keeping it somewhere. (This is going on Rafael's permanent record!) We go see the dr. Any pain? No. Bleeding or other fluids leaking? No. Baby moving? Yes. He says that's good, cause if there were a problem there would be bleeding or pain, so he's pretty sure everything is fine, plus there are 7 layers protecting the baby. "But don't worry, I won't discharge you until we know for sure." He does an exam, then we go over to the ultrasound area and we pay R$130 reais and then wait there for about 15 minutes and have a fun time talking about current events with Rafael. Then it was my turn.

Nice ultrasound guy. Everything looks good in the ultrasound. Placenta looks good, blood flow through the cord is good, everything looks very good. Hooray! While we were at it, we asked how the kidney's looked. He said they look totally normal and he has no concerns. Great! Well, this only cost us about $100 bucks! Now when we go back we can we don't have to do the follow up ultrasound there, yay! Our ultrasound there cost us $300 after insurance, so saved us a little bit of money, sweet. We can keep saving up for the delivery.

Ok, well that was a fun little pre-date night outing. So are you hungry? We say thank you and good bye to Rafael and swing by the mall food court on the way home for a late 10pm dinner. Then we go by a little specialty store there at the mall to buy a few take home gifts, and I just had to ask Corey if we could buy the bulk size Tic-Tacs I saw there... I took this picture of the tic-tacs next to the local sized pb jar and showed all the kids, I thought it was pretty funny.

In most things they think little, but with little things like tic-tacs, they think BIG! Never seen a such a big thing of Tic-Tacs, even in the US. They seem to take their mints very seriously - Tic-Tacs, Mentos, etc.  There are big packages of them at Sam's and they hold a prominent place in all the store check out isles. Ethan was given a piece of "candy" by another kid at church, which was a Halls lozenge. Strange...

Well, so that was our fun night tonight. We have a busy weekend - tomorrow is a ward party, a "June Festival" and then Corey and I need to try to find time to sit and think and write talks for Sunday. We are both giving talks in Sacrament meeting. ...in Porkageeze. Should be fun!