Happy Baby Tears
My yoga teacher tonight talked about the importance of Happy Baby pose as it signifies the simplicity of life and the awesome feelings a baby has when in that pose. A baby in Happy Baby is thinking about how proud they are of themselves and how amazing their body is and all the sudden I found tears streaming down my face thinking of our little Caleb. I want him to always be proud of himself and amazed by his body.
Monday, April 3rd, was our first day back to reality after an amazing trip to Mexico together and Dan and I had our night planned. I was getting home from work early so he could leave the little boys behind while he got the older boys from school. He would come home just in time to be with Duncan so I could get Caleb to gymnastics. Big huge bear hugs would be exchanged on the way out as we hadn’t seen the older boys in over a week due to Spring Break. Then we were putting the little boys to bed and Dan and I were going to a late yoga class while the older boys “watched” the little boys. Chaotic, but wonderful.
But God had a different plan.
Dan walked through the door with Ben and AJ and while I wanted to jump up and hug them, I had paused our 5 Little Monkeys dance party to address Caleb’s look of concern. I noticed he was spacing out a bit while grabbing his shirt near his chest. I held him in my arms and asked if his heart hurt to which he responded no and wanted to keep dancing. But I knew better than to let it go and checked his heart rate with our trusty AliveCor product and sure enough, 266 bpm. So that was the start of the remainder of our night. No gymnastics, no big bear hugs upon arrival, no yoga.
Although a sudden increase in stress, our entire family remained calm. The on-call Cardiologist called me back within minutes, talked with me briefly and then told me he would let Children’s ER know that we were on our way. Dan drove separate and I took Caleb and Duncan. Our car ride conversation was interesting. I told Caleb we were taking him to the doctor to fix his heart. Duncan (nearly two) repeats everything so when he repeated “go doctor, go doctor, go doctor" Caleb was quick to correct him "NOOOO Duncan, I need the doctor, not you. You are too little."
When Dan, Duncan, Caleb and I arrived about 15 minutes later, the clinical care was top notch. The triage nurse quickly confirmed SVT (super ventricular tachycardia) when she couldn’t even count his heart it was going so fast and we were escorted back to "the room." It’s not really the room you want to be in because it means you have a true emergency that needs to accommodate a fairly large clinical care team with all of the appropriate equipment on hand. Caleb watched the people swarm around his bed while I held his hand and Duncan clung to Dan. About 20 minutes later they were ready to administer the drug that "fixes” his heart. We all hold our breath, watch the monitor and wait for it to drop, hopefully. And it did, from 260 to 125, and you hear the room in unison give a quiet cheer and let out a sigh of relief.
Caleb was a champion. He is the strongest little 3 year old I know. Yes, he cried, he cried a lot, but he demonstrated such perseverance. When they were fairly sure he was reverted out of SVT for good they moved us out of “the room” into a standard ER room. Duncan and Dan left and Caleb and I laid in his bed and sang different versions of “We’ll be coming around the mountain” for hours while using the trucks they gave him and his body as props. Caleb’s favorite version was “Dump truck coming around the tummy when he comes” and we laughed and laughed. That’s the definition of perseverance.
Caleb is our constant reminder that our life plans aren’t ours, but rather belong to God. He has plans for Caleb, I just know it. He’s so smart and strong and he won’t let any of these bumps in the road keep him from spelling, reading and counting all day long. The next day we were playing chalk outside and when checking on Caleb he had written “Mom Birthday, Caleb" Bless his sweet little heart that spans bigger than all of this medical crap we deal with each and everyday.
We are so thankful for your love and support and prayers. Keep them coming!