Luke and Cora were sitting at the table eating their evening snack. Both had eaten well for dinner so they were able to pick one piece of Halloween Candy for snack.
I walked away from the table to clean up from the evening, Dave was downstairs feeding the cat. I hear a "choking" noise and run towards the table, both kids seem fine but Luke is visibly upset. I can see he is breathing but now he starts to throw up. . . I grab a dish towel and try to catch the puke while simultaneously looking to see what is going on . . . I can't see anything in Luke's mouth, he seems to be breathing but he is still semi-coughing and trying to throw up?!?!? I scream to Dave to come quickly while I was trying to look into Luke's mouth. I see nothing in his mouth, not sure what to do and getting close to panic . . . I put my finger into his mouth and down his throat only to dislodge a "Whopper" from his throat!!
Luke now starts to cry and reaches out to hug me, I try not to show how upset I am and hand him his milk telling him it will make his throat feel better to drink. At this point Dave arrives upstairs and sees throw up, Luke crying, and my face. . . . to which he looks relieved because he instantly understood what happened.
I don't know how I knew that I should finger sweep his mouth and throat - was that part of the CPR training I took years ago?!?! I am not sure. I could have pushed it further into his throat?!?!
After the 30 seconds he was choking (was he even choking because he could still breath and throw up?!?) and the follow up 30 seconds it took for me to dislodge the "Whopper" I moved on with normal nightly routine - bath, books, and bed. It wasn't until I thought about it later, when I was laying in bed that I cried a little bit. Not sobs - just some tears that represented how quickly normal can turn "bad" and back again?!! And then I considered my decision to allow him to eat the candy. . . Whoppers didn't seem like a killer candy. . . don't those darn things just dissolve in your mouth - why did it choke Luke?!?!?!?
Ugh. . .Day to day life . . .
2 comments:
Oh, Erin. I'm so sorry. I do agree that those day to day moments can be scary. xo
How scary! Choking is one of my biggest fears. I'm glad Luke is okay.