There's something to be said for dumb luck.
Nick got home late tonight from an overnight trip down at Mt. St. Helens. Have you noticed that I haven't been able to write anything in the last couple of days? I just couldn't do it before now. Who wants to read a blog about how I managed to distract myself while he was gone? Okay, well, I'll tell you anyway.
Yesterday, I defrosted the freezer with my earbuds in and my iPod volume set to high. I realize that I have way too much quiet music downloaded on it. When Charles Brown sang 'I Want to Go Home,' my heart ached, though I tried to ignore it.
After Mike got home from work, we went to the Snoqualmie Casino and played blackjack for a while. People-watching at a blackjack table is my favorite thing about spending time in any casino. Las Vegas wins the prize for the greatest variety of people. I also liked that I hadn't totally forgotten how to play. The guy to my left was hemorrhaging money by playing $50 a bet and betting badly. He was sitting at the table with a 'friend' who refused to help him and laughed each time he lost another load. The dealer was slowing down and trying to help him, but this guy just needed more time and someone to teach him the rules of the game. I had a short winning streak, but it didn't last and I walked away having lost $15. I figure that's a good price for the entertainment and a little distraction. Blackjack was much better at distracting me than defrosting the freezer.
Today, I went to an optional meeting, took the cat to the vet for something he didn't really need yet, rewrote my article for the local newspaper, and talked on the phone to another one of the lonely moms for over an hour. I sent a couple of texts to Nick's phone even though I knew Nick wouldn't dare turn it on since he wasn't supposed to have a phone on the trip at all. Mike and I had insisted he take it in case of an emergency.
Tonight, when Nick got off the bus, I could see that he'd had a great time. He was bouncing and ready to tell me everything that had happened. They spent the night at Tootle High School and watched a movie about the eruption. The girls were spying on them as they settled down to go to sleep. The next day, they took a two hour hike, and spent some time at the visitor's center. The visitor's center at Mt. St. Helens is amazing.
But there's a dumb luck element to Nick's story.
Mike and I had spent a lot of time working with the school nurse and Nick's teacher to work out the details of this trip. Nick has a life-threatening allergy to tree nuts and carries an EpiPen with him wherever he goes. Up until now, he hasn't been allowed to be in the care of any adults who weren't careful about his allergy and willing to give him an EpiPen injection if it was necessary. You'd be surprised how many people, my well-loved sister included, who have handed him food studded with nuts despite current discussions about it. There's another whole set of people who can't tolerate the idea of needles. Now that he's eleven, Nick is beginning to learn how to manage this on his own. He also carries Xopenex everywhere with him in case his asthma bothers him, like when he's hiking.
The last time Nick was in the emergency room for breathing issues from having eaten a small part of a walnut, he was three or four years old. The doctors and nurses struggled to keep his airways open. One nurse even questioned if it was safe to give him another injection of epinephrine, considering his heart rate, and the doctor barked at her that if his airways didn't open up, his heart rate would be irrelevant. That kind of conversation kind of stays with a parent. Nick's allergy doctor won't test him using the usual contact method any more, saying it's safer to test his blood instead.
For this trip, the school nurse and Nick's teacher told us that they would handle Nick's allergy issues. We discussed how he should have his fanny pack containing his EpiPen and his inhaler with him at all times. We talked about training the people who were in charge of him. Nick's teacher, sounding like the calm in the storm, told us that Nick would be okay, that he would help Nick to review the ingredient lists on his food. They basically told us that we had to choose between going to this overnight field trip with Nick and the three-night camp in the spring since so many other parents also wanted to go.
We carefully packed Nick's things the night before the trip. Mike and I talked about the necessity of the phone, despite the rules against it. I showed Nick where I'd packed his EpiPens and his inhaler in his fanny pack and reiterated that it needed to stay with him at all times. I showed him where I'd packed a spare set of EpiPens in the front pocket of his backpack. It was hard, but we took the teacher's advice and his assurances and let Nick go. Then, Mike and I distracted ourselves the best we could, believing that we had all the bases covered.
Now, here's the dumb luck part. As Nick started telling me more details about his trip, I got a shot of adrenaline of my own, a natural one that I'm still trying to work out of my system three hours later. Did you ever get that, like when a car cuts you off in traffic and you realize you almost died in a car crash, or when your friends who think it's funny, jump out at you when you aren't expecting it, except you're in New York after midnight and you believe for a moment that you're actually about to get mugged or worse? Sometimes, it takes a while to work that kind of adrenaline out of your system.
Nick told me that he got onto the bus without his fanny pack. Not one of the teachers checked to make sure he had it with him. His gear was stowed, including the extra EpiPen I'd packed for him in his backpack along with his dinner. Since he didn't have dinner, he ate whatever he hadn't eaten at lunch and went without anything else. But he could as easily have eaten something someone else had given him, something that might have had nuts in it. And how long would it have taken for the bus to pull over and find that stowed EpiPen?
Today, on the hike, if Nick's asthma had bothered him, he would have been stuck wheezing and feeling light-headed. No one asked if he was carrying his inhaler then. His asthma isn't as scary as his tree nut allergy, but it definitely affects how he can move upward on a hill and the inhaler makes a huge difference in how he feels.
Nick carried his spare EpiPen in his pocket since he wasn't allowed to carry his backpack in the visitor's center. That was smart of him. He was with a woman who never asked about his EpiPen, who most likely had not even been told that he had an allergy. She should have been told where his EpiPen was and been trained how to use it. Precious minutes are lost to lack of oxygen when people try to deliver an EpiPen injection without first removing the safety cap on the opposite end. If Nick had been lying on the floor, not breathing, she might not have had any idea what was wrong, let alone that there was an EpiPen in his pocket. It would be like dying of thirst in the desert with a quart of water in your canteen.
It was sheer dumb luck that Nick didn't need his EpiPen on that bus, that he didn't need a responsible adult to get him through an emergency the next day. We were lucky to have packed that spare EpiPen and lucky to have a boy who was smart enough to go without a meal rather than risk eating something unknown that someone else gave him. Maybe there is some kind of grace in this world, despite my doubts. I'll tell you about those doubts someday. I'm just happy we got our boy back, happy and tired, at the end of his field trip.
Thank you for listening, jb
Nick got home late tonight from an overnight trip down at Mt. St. Helens. Have you noticed that I haven't been able to write anything in the last couple of days? I just couldn't do it before now. Who wants to read a blog about how I managed to distract myself while he was gone? Okay, well, I'll tell you anyway.
Yesterday, I defrosted the freezer with my earbuds in and my iPod volume set to high. I realize that I have way too much quiet music downloaded on it. When Charles Brown sang 'I Want to Go Home,' my heart ached, though I tried to ignore it.
After Mike got home from work, we went to the Snoqualmie Casino and played blackjack for a while. People-watching at a blackjack table is my favorite thing about spending time in any casino. Las Vegas wins the prize for the greatest variety of people. I also liked that I hadn't totally forgotten how to play. The guy to my left was hemorrhaging money by playing $50 a bet and betting badly. He was sitting at the table with a 'friend' who refused to help him and laughed each time he lost another load. The dealer was slowing down and trying to help him, but this guy just needed more time and someone to teach him the rules of the game. I had a short winning streak, but it didn't last and I walked away having lost $15. I figure that's a good price for the entertainment and a little distraction. Blackjack was much better at distracting me than defrosting the freezer.
Today, I went to an optional meeting, took the cat to the vet for something he didn't really need yet, rewrote my article for the local newspaper, and talked on the phone to another one of the lonely moms for over an hour. I sent a couple of texts to Nick's phone even though I knew Nick wouldn't dare turn it on since he wasn't supposed to have a phone on the trip at all. Mike and I had insisted he take it in case of an emergency.
Tonight, when Nick got off the bus, I could see that he'd had a great time. He was bouncing and ready to tell me everything that had happened. They spent the night at Tootle High School and watched a movie about the eruption. The girls were spying on them as they settled down to go to sleep. The next day, they took a two hour hike, and spent some time at the visitor's center. The visitor's center at Mt. St. Helens is amazing.
But there's a dumb luck element to Nick's story.
Mike and I had spent a lot of time working with the school nurse and Nick's teacher to work out the details of this trip. Nick has a life-threatening allergy to tree nuts and carries an EpiPen with him wherever he goes. Up until now, he hasn't been allowed to be in the care of any adults who weren't careful about his allergy and willing to give him an EpiPen injection if it was necessary. You'd be surprised how many people, my well-loved sister included, who have handed him food studded with nuts despite current discussions about it. There's another whole set of people who can't tolerate the idea of needles. Now that he's eleven, Nick is beginning to learn how to manage this on his own. He also carries Xopenex everywhere with him in case his asthma bothers him, like when he's hiking.
The last time Nick was in the emergency room for breathing issues from having eaten a small part of a walnut, he was three or four years old. The doctors and nurses struggled to keep his airways open. One nurse even questioned if it was safe to give him another injection of epinephrine, considering his heart rate, and the doctor barked at her that if his airways didn't open up, his heart rate would be irrelevant. That kind of conversation kind of stays with a parent. Nick's allergy doctor won't test him using the usual contact method any more, saying it's safer to test his blood instead.
For this trip, the school nurse and Nick's teacher told us that they would handle Nick's allergy issues. We discussed how he should have his fanny pack containing his EpiPen and his inhaler with him at all times. We talked about training the people who were in charge of him. Nick's teacher, sounding like the calm in the storm, told us that Nick would be okay, that he would help Nick to review the ingredient lists on his food. They basically told us that we had to choose between going to this overnight field trip with Nick and the three-night camp in the spring since so many other parents also wanted to go.
We carefully packed Nick's things the night before the trip. Mike and I talked about the necessity of the phone, despite the rules against it. I showed Nick where I'd packed his EpiPens and his inhaler in his fanny pack and reiterated that it needed to stay with him at all times. I showed him where I'd packed a spare set of EpiPens in the front pocket of his backpack. It was hard, but we took the teacher's advice and his assurances and let Nick go. Then, Mike and I distracted ourselves the best we could, believing that we had all the bases covered.
Now, here's the dumb luck part. As Nick started telling me more details about his trip, I got a shot of adrenaline of my own, a natural one that I'm still trying to work out of my system three hours later. Did you ever get that, like when a car cuts you off in traffic and you realize you almost died in a car crash, or when your friends who think it's funny, jump out at you when you aren't expecting it, except you're in New York after midnight and you believe for a moment that you're actually about to get mugged or worse? Sometimes, it takes a while to work that kind of adrenaline out of your system.
Nick told me that he got onto the bus without his fanny pack. Not one of the teachers checked to make sure he had it with him. His gear was stowed, including the extra EpiPen I'd packed for him in his backpack along with his dinner. Since he didn't have dinner, he ate whatever he hadn't eaten at lunch and went without anything else. But he could as easily have eaten something someone else had given him, something that might have had nuts in it. And how long would it have taken for the bus to pull over and find that stowed EpiPen?
Today, on the hike, if Nick's asthma had bothered him, he would have been stuck wheezing and feeling light-headed. No one asked if he was carrying his inhaler then. His asthma isn't as scary as his tree nut allergy, but it definitely affects how he can move upward on a hill and the inhaler makes a huge difference in how he feels.
Nick carried his spare EpiPen in his pocket since he wasn't allowed to carry his backpack in the visitor's center. That was smart of him. He was with a woman who never asked about his EpiPen, who most likely had not even been told that he had an allergy. She should have been told where his EpiPen was and been trained how to use it. Precious minutes are lost to lack of oxygen when people try to deliver an EpiPen injection without first removing the safety cap on the opposite end. If Nick had been lying on the floor, not breathing, she might not have had any idea what was wrong, let alone that there was an EpiPen in his pocket. It would be like dying of thirst in the desert with a quart of water in your canteen.
It was sheer dumb luck that Nick didn't need his EpiPen on that bus, that he didn't need a responsible adult to get him through an emergency the next day. We were lucky to have packed that spare EpiPen and lucky to have a boy who was smart enough to go without a meal rather than risk eating something unknown that someone else gave him. Maybe there is some kind of grace in this world, despite my doubts. I'll tell you about those doubts someday. I'm just happy we got our boy back, happy and tired, at the end of his field trip.
Thank you for listening, jb
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