A Strange 24 Hours, Part 2

9:30: We head to the hospital and visit my friend. She's also the boys' choir teacher, so they were happy to see her. We had a nice visit and headed out about 11.

11:15: We go to lunch at Pizza Hut, which is unusually empty and we are the only ones there. It's wonderful! And, we had a very nice lunch. We leave and stop by home on our way to our weekly homeschool meeting at the park.

12:30: We arrive at the park and have fun with friends. About 1:30, one of our moms, on her way to park, calls to tell me that a major road in our area is completely out of traffic lights for about 5 miles. Uh-oh. That's not good. She says it's scary because it seems like something's wrong. Before she even arrives at park, several moms get calls telling them about a power outage over a very large area. Nicky calls me and tells me that power is out all the way to Orlando and Daytona.

2:30: I leave park to go get Savannah from school. On the way there, she texts me that the school is on lock down and asking me what's going on. I text back that power is out all over. She texts back that I can get her out of school, but I have to go in and sign her out. I arrive at school and park. I walk up to the school and see a large line of parents. Uh-oh. I get in line behind about 200 parents and get ready for a long wait. About 10 minutes later, some school personnel announce they will release the kids in a couple minutes. Whew!! So, I walk to the fence to wait for Savannah.

3:20: I stop to get gas on the way home, just in case the blackout lasts longer than expected. We arrive home and I wait for Nicky's phone call to find out if we have power. We do. Yeah! It's hot outside, so it's nice to have the air. My friend, Lori, has her anniversary tomorrow, so her daughter has planned a big surprise for her. Lori is in the process of moving to the Qatar and her husband has already gone over, so she will be alone for her anniversary. Lori's daughter called me last night asking me to take Lori out today for an hour or two so she can get some work done for the surprise. I really don't know what to do with her, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

4:00: Nicky has called and I leave to get Lori. We go to the local Christian bookstore and browse, sans kids, then go get my hair cut. I'm not too happy with the cut, but I never am, so that's no surprise.

5:30: I deliver Lori home safely, then head home to cook some dinner.

7:45: I'm starting to clean up from dinner and Ashton comes in to tell me she just found Levi on her bed with an open bottle of Excedrin pills. Did he eat any? We don't know. We try to ask him, but he changes from yes to no to yes to no, so who knows. We try to find the missing pills....if there are any missing. We don't know how full the bottle was.

7:55: I call poison control and they say he needs to go to the ER since we don't know if he ate any or not. Excedrin has high amounts of acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine. These can cause liver, heart, and other damage. After packing a bag of "tricks" (ie: snacks, toys, books, blanket, etc), Ashton and I leave for the ER. We arrive at the hospital at 8:30 and I guess poison control has called because I seem to get in pretty quickly-only an hour til we're in our own room.

9:45: A nurse comes in and pricks Levi's finger, then takes a small glass tube of his blood. He doesn't cry, but watches in awe. For the next 2 hours, we attempt to entertain him. Luckily, we are in our own room and it's pretty large, so he has plenty of space to play. We make several trips to the restroom. They give him a little, tiny hospital gown. He is just too cute in it!!

11:45: We've had to wait 4 hours from ingestion time to draw the test blood, so within 10 minutes, they come in and give Levi an IV. They draw a tube of blood for the test. While they did the IV, he was crying, poor baby. He didn't like that at all. I don't blame him. I don't like it either. They leave the IV closed off and then another nurse comes in and does the EKG. He lays very still and does great. After it is complete, they connect the IV to a drip and put him onto a heart monitor. Since it's after midnight, I make him lay down on the bed and have Ashton turn off the light. I sit on the bed with him and about 12:20, he finally falls asleep. Ashton can't be quiet enough, so she goes out to the waiting room where they're showing movies. Actually, I think I fall alseep, too, and I wake up about 1am.

1:45: The doctor comes in and announces that all the blood tests are clear and they've ruled out ingestion. Whew!! We can go home...yeah! He disconnects the IV and heart monitor, pulls tons of tape off the IV, and peels off the 13, yes 13, stickers on Levi's chest from the heart machines. This obviously wakes him up, but he's sooo tired and is fussing. We finally leave the hospital about 2am and after trying to find someplace to get food... and finally finding a McDonalds open...we arrive home at 3am.

2 Diet Cokes to keep mom awake: $3.50
Blood tests, IV, EKG, etc in ER: $100
Knowing your child is safe: Priceless

This has been a very strange 24 hours. Isn't it funny how when you wake up in the morning, you never know where your day will take you? Oh, you have your plans, and they may actually come to fruition, but maybe not. I can't tell you how many times I sit at the end of the day and think, "If you had told me when I woke up that by the end of the day I would have been... (wherever), I wouldn't have believed you." It's just amazing. So, since I don't have control of my day anyway, I usually just give it to God. He can do so much more than me anyway. Needless to say, today I've been just a "little bit" tired. The boys didn't even get out of their pj's until about 2pm and the day's been kind of a blur for me. Tomorrow will be better, I hope, but I'll give my day to God again and we'll just have to go along for the ride to see where He takes us. :-) I wonder where your day will take you! :-)