Beware of Round Band-Aids!

For those of you who read this blog and have babies.....this post is for you. Today I experienced one of the most scary events in my 7 years of being a mom and it was all because of a band-aid!

I took Will to the pediatrician today for his 9 month check-up. He had to have one vaccination to catch up with where he needs to be! He cried for one moment and then he was OK. The nurse had a hard time finding the injection spot to place the band aid and I even told her not to worry about it since it wasn't bleeding. She went ahead and stuck one of those small round band aids on his thigh.

Fast forward to lunch time. We stopped at Burger King for lunch. We were sitting at the table eating lunch and Will was sitting in the high chair eating his Gerber puffs. Everything was rocking along just fine until Will got choked. A baby CAN'T choke on these puffs since they disolve as soon as they get the first bit of slobber on them, but I assumed that he had just put too many in his mouth. I stuck my finger in his mouth to get them out, but he continued to choke. I patted his back and he continued to choke. I un-strapped him and removed him from the high-chair and began to lightly pat his back. He continued choking. I swept my finger in his mouth again. Nothing. Still choking. I knew he was in trouble. He wasn't breathing very well and he was crying and would gasp for air in between his cries. It was AWFUL! I turned his head toward the floor and began hitting his back a little harder and nothing was coming out. I was SO scared. The whole time NO ONE in Burger King was coming to help. That is a whole other blog entry in itself!! My mind was racing and I'm thinking, "How will I get help? Do I start screaming? Do I need to tell someone to call 911?" I kept lifting him up to look at his face and see what was happening. His eyes were closing and he was not breathing well at all. I again stuck my finger in his mouth and this time I caused him to gag. He spit up and that seemed to help. I lifted him up again to look at his face and he was lethargic and his eyes were droopy, but I noticed something in his mouth. Nothing had been there before, but when he had gagged and spit up, IT appeared. IT was the round band that the nurse had placed on his thigh! Evidently, Will had taken the band aid off his leg (or it fell off; those round ones aren't that sticky) and he had put it in his mouth. It was probably while he was riding in his car seat. His hand usually rests right there on his thigh when he is in his seat. I guess that the band aid had just floated around in his mouth, un-detected by me, and then when he began to swallow the puffs, the band aid tried to go down too, and it restricted his air-way! Oh. My. Goodness. This probably all took place in about one minute of time, but it felt like ten minutes! He was absolutely worn out and he just fell asleep in my arms. Of course, I kept checking him to make sure that he was breathing and that he appeared OK. He is doing just fine now and we have ALL recovered. It was so scary!

I just wanted to warn all parents of babies to NOT use the round band-aids under any circumstances! I'll have to ponder a little longer on the fact that no one at Burger King, staff or patrons, offered any help. I wasn't looking around for help, but Beckett even commented (when I was sitting back in my seat and everything had calmed down) that no one had come to offer us help. Just someone moving toward us as if they recognized that we were dealing with a scary situation would have been a little comforting. I was standing in the middle of the restaurant, beating my infant on the back, and it was as if all was fine with the world. I'm just not sure what this says about our society, but I know that there is a lesson there for me....just need to think on that for a bit!

Beckett and Helen said it best when we were on our way home! They said that Will was OK because God was protecting him! So true! Thank you God for your protection over our family today!