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Nurse Stories, Part Thirteen: Pediatric Code Blue!, Or: It Just Wasn't Her Time To Go...(By Gloria Michelle Trainor, R.N.) by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Monday, July 19, 2004
Rated "PG" by the Author.
You lose some, but yet you win some, and sometimes you win big, as evident in this story about a nurse who saved the life of a little girl who wasn't expected to live.
I see this particular child now and then coming into my Emergency Room (she has asthma and allergies, and sometimes she gets into trouble), but I am always relieved whenever we manage to save her butt yet again, and she seems to recover from her crisis with little or no problem (that is, once she gets over the initial anaphylaxis and all the fun things that come along with it). She seems destined to die, but somehow she pulls through, and she recovers.
I remember one of the first times I saw this particular child. She had a long standing history of asthma and allergies, and she was allergic to just about everything under the sun: you name it, and she was probably allergic to it. She was brought into our E.R., unconscious and barely breathing, and her color looked bad. Her young face was the color of a ripe blueberry, and her breathing was gasping; she needed emergency help right away, and it was up to us to try to save her before brain damage set in from lack of oxygen. We gave her a shot of epinephrine, which opened up her blocked bronchial tubes, and she started breathing again, but she was still not out of the woods. We put her on a ventilator (so her tired and sore lungs could rest), and we sent her to Respiratory Care, where she would be closely monitored (and hopefully stabilized). She was in the hospital for three days; three days later, she was on her way home, a little hoarse, but seemingly recovered from her breathing ordeal.
Yet this wasn't the last time we would see this child. Young Ronee' Le-Anne Reaux and our E.R. became very familiar with each other, and she could be counted on to visit our facility, sure and certain. She was allergic to things ranging from peanuts and dust to bee or wasp stings, and there could be any time she would get into trouble; and she would have to come to our E.R. for treatment for her latest round of breathing problems. There were a few times where she was down (but not out, not quite), and we had to work like hell to try to save her life. She would be breathless and pulseless, and we would have to pound on her and shock her, anything to try to will the kid back to life; and somehow, somewhere, the kid would get her pulse and breathing back, and we would snatch her from the jaws of death yet again. She scared the living hell out of us more than once, and I was beginning to wonder if the kid had a death wish or something similar.
As the years went by, Ronee' would become a "frequent flyer", or a very regular visitor to our E.R. But she still remained quite upbeat and cheerful (once she got to feeling more like herself, and once she got over her anger from our abusing her body from trying to save her life), and she proved to be a very delightful child with a precocious streak that seemed to go on forever. She was very smart for her years, and she was also very cute. She was one of the cutest kids we had ever seen, and whenever she would be well enough to leave the hospital, she would always thank us for taking care of her and saving her life; she was very polite, and she was grateful that we knew enough to save her when she got into trouble. She loved life, and it was very evident in her actions and in her personality. She didn't hold any grudges for our poking her or prodding her, and she forgave us each and every time. She was quite a kid, and every time we heard that she had pulled through another crisis, we were amazed at her courage and will to live.
She is now 11, 11 and a half to be exact (she will be 12 on Christmas Day), and I am happy to report that although she still has asthma and allergies, she is getting better, and she doesn't seem to be coming to our E.R. as often. Her asthma is happily becoming more manageable, and she is breathing easier now that she is growing up. She also knows how to take care of herself, to prevent an attack, or if she DOES have an attack, she knows what to do to help herself through it. Sure, it is still upsetting to her, but she knows that relaxation is the best thing for her breathing, so she does everything in her power to try to help herself. If it is a bad attack, she can tell her parents, and then they bring her to our E.R., where we give her a treatment, a shot, and some oxygen, and she is usually okay in a few hours, and she then goes back home. She knows well enough to stay away from the things that make her the sickest, and she does everything in her own way to prevent a crisis from happening, and to prevent another trip to the E.R.
Her life-threatening episodes are still a possibility (due to her allergies to peanuts or stings from bees or wasps), but she finally has control over the demon that is asthma in her life, and she is happier, healthier, and much more sure of herself and her future. She is still wanting to become a singer, and she still takes time to enjoy the simpler things in life, even when things aren't going as well for her as she would like. She is a Miracle Child, and it is amazing to think that she is the same little girl that we tried so hard to revive in the Emergency Room on more than one occasion!
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I see this particular child now and then coming into my Emergency Room (she has asthma and allergies, and sometimes she gets into trouble), but I am always relieved whenever we manage to save her butt yet again, and she seems to recover from her crisis with little or no problem (that is, once she gets over the initial anaphylaxis and all the fun things that come along with it). She seems destined to die, but somehow she pulls through, and she recovers.
