Today was one of those days where everything didn’t go exactly wrong, but just different than I planned. Tiara and I usually walk with a friend on Wednesdays but this morning I had an early auction meeting for the school at 8:15am. My plan was to do Tiara’s medicine a little early and bring her to the meeting with me in hopes she would just color and listen to her Ipod. Wishful thinking.
Well, the first thing that went wrong, was I got up for a glass of water at 1:00am last night and found Lou still watching TV. I hadn’t seen him before I went to bed, so I gave him a kiss and sat down for a second to ask about his day. Big mistake! As he started to tell me about his extremely stressful day, I knew I should just stand up, cut him off and walk back into the bedroom and go back to bed. From experience I know that if I listen and he is stressed, I will instantly get stressed and not be able to go back to sleep. Nevertheless, I felt bad abandoning him so I listened and as expected I couldn’t go back to bed until 3:30am.
Trinity then came in looking for me at 4:00 am after a bad dream. Needless to say I woke up at 6:30am feeling exhausted. I downed my huge cup of coffee and started getting everything ready for the day. Lou planned on bringing Trinity to school for me, but all of the sudden I realized she was going to be late and he wasn’t quite ready to drive her so I asked Tabitha to watch Tiara and I quickly drove Trinity to school in my pajamas with no bra, no shoes, no purse, no cell phone and no sunglasses! Super scary. I just prayed I wouldn’t get pulled over or in an accident. The problem is that by the time I got home I had to leave for my meeting in 10 minutes and I hadn’t done Tiara’s medicine, gotten her dressed, and I looked like a train wreck. So I had 10 minutes to get that all done, totally impossible. I was able to get it all done in 22 minutes which was pretty respectable but I was still going to be late.
I left the house at 8:24am uneven though the meeting started at 8:15 am and I HATE TO BE LATE. I parked in front of her driveway and tried to walk in quietly with Tiara but that was impossible, since she kept saying “Hi, Hi.” I sat her on the ground with her crayons and iPod and attempted to listen to the meeting but she thought it would be a good idea to start crawling around the house. In less than 5 minutes, I realized this was never going to happen and we just left. So now it is only 8:45am and I have rushed around all morning for this meeting which I wasn’t able to attend and I didn’t get any exercise. Now what?
We went home and my house was shockingly clean. Tabitha had picked up everything for me and had done the dishes, which was a fabulous surprise. I didn’t even need to clean.
I had a meeting with an old friend scheduled for 10:30 am at our house, which is when Tiara is normally asleep. We planned on discussing a business matter while Tiara slept, but of course, she decided to wake up after only 20 minutes and was laying by the front door when my friend arrived. We were actually able to cover some things we wanted to talk about and watch Tiara at the same time, when Tiara took off for the kitchen. We both followed her in there and she asked for a brownie. Tabitha thought it was a good idea to make a batch of brownies before work today and Tiara was staring at them. She had already gotten out a plate and fork. I cut her a piece and put it on the plate and she sat down at the bar to eat it.
I was literally standing right next to her watching her eat and my friend was standing behind Tiara and we were talking over her. All of the sudden, I could tell she was starting to choke. Once again, I started thinking, “Oh no, not the Heimlich right now”! I patted her on the back a few times, but I could tell she was really choking. I got behind her on the bar stool and tried to do the Heimlich while she was sitting but it wasn’t working. I started to feel a little panicky because it usually works on the 3rd try. I then quickly moved her off the stool but she started to drop to the ground. She was fighting against me because her instinctual response was to lean forward and I needed to get her up enough to be in the right position. Well, I looked at her face and it was turning purple. I was super panicked at this point and tried a few more times when we both fell backwards onto our butts. I started to do it again while she was sitting, but it didn’t seem to be working. I think my friend could tell I was starting to freak out and I was about to call 911 but I didn’t think I had enough time because she was already turning purple. What should I do?
My friend then offered to do the Heimlich and suggested I put my fingers in her mouth to try and remove the piece of doughy brownie, but all of the sudden we heard a slight cough. Ohh, Thank you God!!!! A huge sigh of relief. When someone can cough, you know the airway is getting cleared and they will be OK.
Tiara started crying the second the brownie came out and I was shaking like a leaf. My sweet friend left and Tiara and I sat around for a few minutes hugging as we both tried to calm ourselves before she then started asking to drive to Target to get some popcorn. Nothing keeps her down very long, so we went to Target and got her popcorn and continued on with our day.
To be honest, before we went to Target I had to call Tabitha, my sister, my mom and Louie to tell them the story because I was so rattled. I kept thinking “after all she has been through, she is going to die on my floor choking on a brownie?” Hummm, needless to say, it sucks to feel helpless and I am so grateful once again she pulled through and is stronger than anyone I will ever know. Living with Tiara is always an adventure.
Hope you have a wonderful Thursday …
