Near FatAl Drowning…
It was Saturday, July 1st. We had been having a great couple of days…and no episodes since May.
We packed up our pool bag & headed over to Chartwell, all five of us. A ton of our friends were there & it was looking to be a really fun day. One we needed and were looking forward to…
Jason and I were sitting at the tables next to the pool, always an eye on Jack but not being helicopter parents. Jack was finally a full swimmer but was just playing in the shallow end, where he can touch. Kids were throwing the reusable water balloons and having a blast.
It’s in slow motion for me, but I’ve heard what happened next was extremely fast…
In my head, I see Jason walking slowly toward the pool as if he sees something is wrong. I follow him but as I begin to see what is going on, he has ripped Jack from the pool and is carrying him to the grass. Jack is blue…completely blue, but only seconds ago he was fine. I am calm, and completely not scared… I don’t know why, but I’m not. He lays him down on the grass and I just start giving him CPR. I’m not even thinking… and I hear Jason in agony, “no…. no…. no….”
At that time, I didn’t know this, but Jason thought he was gone.
Within seconds, Jack’s eyes open and he’s okay. He didn’t cough up any water & wasn’t distressed.
It was another episode, only this time, in the pool.
Suddenly, paramedics are there & I turn around and the entire community was staring at us in horror. And poor Vivian and Rylan were as well. I grabbed them and walked outside of the pool area to talk to them in private. Jason stayed with Jack… I then gave the paramedics Jack’s health history and they advised us that we should go straight to the ER. I said fine, absolutely, but to Hopkins, no where else.
We were at Hopkins for three days… they treated him as a NEAR FATAL DROWNING patient.
As Jack’s oxygen levels continued to waver, I reminded them that this is his normal routine now. When he’s sick or if he’s aspirated water (whether from swimming, drinking, or almost drowning), his oxygen levels suffer.
At this point, they advise us to schedule a sleep study to uncover more about his apneas & episodes.
This is July 1 and they can’t get us into the sleep study until September…
Eventually we are discharged. It is the 4th of July … and we go to the pool, because we can’t be afraid.
We have to continue living a normal life.
And when Jason got out of the deep end that day, this was attached to his foot.
God is with us…
