I am FINALLY getting a few minutes to thank everyone for their prayers for our sweet Jonboy! Most of all I want to thank my Lord for what He did on June 4 for our family!!! On Tuesday Doug had gotten home from work around 2:25 pm and decided to try and get some work done on the house outside. He went upstairs to change into work clothes, so I followed to talk about the days events. Jonathan wanted to go up with me. After changing his clothes, Doug asked Jonathan if he needed his diaper changed. Jonathan had just climbed up on his bed and Doug went to him. He started to lay him down and realized he was choking very badly and not breathing. There were NO sounds and a look of horror on Jonathan's face. I felt and looked in his mouth but could not feel or see anything. At this point his face and lips were changing colors and he started clenching his jaws shut. Doug grabbed him and did the infant Heimlich with three hard hits to the back. On the third hit, Jon made a slight noise. I took him and tried to talk calmly to get him to clam down and breathe. He started getting air but not well. He kept choking and gagging on whatever it was he swallowed. We had not seen anything in his hands except for one of the iphones. We were confident he did not swallow that! Very quickly we decided we needed help in getting whatever it was, out! We jumped in the suburban and headed into town. I called 911 and asked them to let the hospital know we were headed in. Doug also wanted any officers that may be on our route that we would be speeding and would NOT be stopping! Dispatch was going to send an ambulance our way, but at the speed Doug was driving, we would be there before anyone could reach us. (We made 14 miles in 8 minutes) His police and military driving skills paid off- BIG! The ER doctor and nurse were standing outside waiting for us. They grabbed Jon and ran in with him. Very quickly after x-rays, the doctor came in and emotionally told us it looks like a quarter and is laying the diameter of his trachea. The coin was slightly tipped to allow some oxygen through. He explained it is very dangerous and they could not remove it because they did not have the correct equipment because of his size. He said they needed to air lift him to Nashville. Of course, throughout this whole time, word was spreading throughout my family and the church! MANY prayers were being prayed! A few minutes later I asked a nurse about one of the doctors I knew. The nurse smiled and said he had just hung up the phone with that doctor and he was on his way to the hospital to do the procedure! The following hour felt like years! Jonathan was VERY lethargic and non-responsive. The whole trip in from home he was the that way also. Every few minutes he would start gagging. The fear was that he would throw up the coin and it would get caught in his throat again and choke him to death. While waiting for the Dr. to get there, another doctor (the top anesthesiologist) came in the room and said he needed to talk to us. He said we needed to understand how serious this was (like we didn't already know) and that it may not end well. He said the coin was floating right above his breathing tube and food tube. He said if it drops in his food tube, they can go in a get it. If it drops in his breathing tube, we are in trouble and it is a very serious problem. He told us several times this was a scary, dangerous situation and it may not end well. Basically, he was warning us (very gently and compassionately) that our baby may die. He said the coin could drop before they even get in to do the procedure or it could even drop during the procedure. The whole time Jonathan was continuing with the gagging and extreme lethargy. Every time he started to gag, Doug and I prayed for God's protection. When the doctor got there, they let Doug carry him back to the procedure room and also let me go back. They allowed us time to kiss on him and tell him how much we loved him. The anesthesiologist was hoping he could put the gas mask on him while Doug was still holding him so he would not cry or have to be laid back any sooner than was absolutely necessary, but he started to cry and squirm so they laid him down and got us out of the room pretty quickly. With him crying and taking deep breaths to cry, there was a greater danger of him inhaling the coin back into the breathing tube. The concern was the same regarding laying him down. In less than 10 minutes the doctor and anesthesiologist emerged from the room. We could not get down the hall fast enough (Doug took off in a sprint)! Dr.Cudradro handed me the coin and said "foreign money"! It was a Mexican penny! He said, "Next time make sure it's American money, it is much smaller." The Mexican penny is the size of a quarter. Later we found out it belonged to Joey. He found it when we were in Texas and he went on a walk with Uncle Sam. He said Sammie had dumped his coin jar the night before and he had not picked them up yet! UGH!!!! God is so wonderful!!! The team said it could not have went any smoother extracting the coin! They did not even have to give him an I.V. They explained that when Doug found him choking it was a total air occlusion and the coin was lodged in his breathing tube. When Doug did the Heimlich, it pushed the coin up into the sphincter. They were expecting the coin to drop and had a trachea kit ready to put in him in hopes of keeping oxygen to his brain when it dropped. BUT..... many prayers reached the throne of God and He once again had mercy on my family! I cannot begin to thank the Lord for all He has done for us and continues to do. We can look back at the situation now and see God's mighty hand there every second. It was Doug and I that was with him when he choked, not any of the kids. Doug instinctively knew what to do to get some oxygen flowing. God made Jonathan lethargic in the car and the WHOLE wait for the doctor because that kept the coin still and the sphincter closed.
There were so many thoughts and emotions we went through. I wanted to study his little face and memorize every feature. Every time he started gagging and would open his eyes at all, I wanted to memorize the exact shade of blue. I thought of how it would be so hard to go home without him, but I knew I could not let it destroy me. I did not have peace that Jonathan was going to live, but I did have peace that God was in control and that my Savior never fails! I wondered what I had at the house that would have his scent. While all of these thoughts rolled through my head, I knew that God was good! I kept whispering "God is good" in Jonathan's ear. If he was going to pass away from this earth, I wanted his mind to be on how good God is. Doug continued to whisper prayers in his ear also. For the first time in my life, I did not feel panicked and out of control when things got scary. Don't get me wrong, it was SOOOOOO scary and I desperately wanted my baby to live, but I did not have that panicked feeling that I have experienced so many times when something bad happens. I wanted to know The Church of God was praying! I finally realized I am not in control, GOD is! It doesn't matter what MY will is, it only matters what GOD's will is. Now, yes, this is easy to say now that I have my sweet baby at home; healthy and safe. I hope and pray that I would have had the same spirit if things would have went different.
I know most of the people that read my blog were the prayer warriors praying when this all was unfolding. THANK YOU!
