today

I would be wise to go to bed, but still wound up and writing will help. I began today by going to our DTS girl's small group. It was a really good conversation, and my phone rang towards the end. It was Wade, and I answered by saying - "I'm still in the middle of small group." He quickly responded, "I need you to tell me how much Eleanor weighs right now, I have poison control on the other line. She got into the bottle of Dramamine." Oh. God. The bottle I dropped in the pile of stuff in the living room while running to the bathroom and I forgot.

Oh. God.

Told him. Small group prayed. Wade called back. There were 12 tablets in the bottle how many did I take on the cruise (adult motion sickness meds)? I don't know for sure. She may have only had 1, but it could be as many as 2 or maybe even 3, and if she has had three she's in danger. Wade asks Soph - how many did she eat? TEN! No, no. He feels stupid. he was just shaving. I feel stupid. How could I? No,no... My friend Krista sprang into action, and came with, giving us her car, taking Soph, our school director Mark waved her out the door, go, just go. Lunch for Soph? We'll take care of her, just go.

So off we go, Nori seems fine - we're whisked in to a room immediately at emerg at Children's Hospital, poison control has called ahead - what a way to skip a huge line. Heart monitors, respiratory monitors, pulse monitors on her little toe. And what do you have to take to counteract this drug? Charcoal. For real. Charcoal. And we either have to get her to drink it, or it goes into through a tube in her nose. We add chocolate milk, I add more and more, trying to get her to drink through a straw. She does at first, gags, refuses. I add more chocolate milk, later cursing the volume she now needs to imbibe to get it all in.

Wade and I discover that Eleanor's determination does come from us, we are actually more determined than her. We are determined not to watch her have a tube up her nose to get this stuff in her, and we tag team, me holding her, Wade putting the bottle up to her lips. We finally reach success by allowing her to nurse for a count of ten, and then count as we get her to drink the "black milk". We count. We count like Dora, Wade yelling "Uno, dos, tres." We sing Blue's Clues, and Wiggles. It takes forever. It takes an hour. There's black everywhere. We all have gowns on, and there is black charcoal spit everywhere, on my glasses, in Nori's ears, on her neck, under her fingernails, on my new green tights. We blacken and blacken a half a dozen face cloths. I become convinced this is the parental equivalent of having to write lines as a child. "I will not leave medicine where my child can reach it. I will not leave medicine where my child can reach it." At times we laugh she looks like something from one of Rick's hilariously terrible MST3K movies "The Baby From The Black Lagoon." But once, when she was so weary, I just had to turn my face so she wouldn't see me cry.

The baby from the black lagoon is so tired....

And then, we're done. It seemed like the bottle was never going down, she would drink and drink and it looked the same, but finally, there is about an inch or so left of the 300 mls and Eleanor is so exhausted she is falling asleep between sips, and I say, "We're done." I am not doing this any more. She most likely only had one or two tabs, not 3, and I am all for being safe, but I. am. not. doing. this. to my baby any more. Wade makes the last inch of the trusty, fantastic, horrible stuff disappear down the sink. I confess later to the nurse but she doesn't get it and just sees the empty bottle and commends us. I absolutely take the praise, we earned it.

They need to keep watching her, and just when I get her to settle a new nurse comes on shift - then she finally falls asleep and they've ordered an EKG. I reluctantly wake my warm sleeping girl (I am totally convinced she's fine by this point) and the EKG technician soothes her by singing a lullaby to her in Romanian about an elephant. The staff were all amazing. Poor Nori never got back to sleep and thankfully a "Child Life" staff person comes to the rescue with books, a DVD and some bubbles. Nori was not thrilled about being taped to all the monitors, so we were getting a bit desperate as to how to keep her still for an hour.

Eleanor is fine, so fine. Poison control finally signs off on saying she can be released in an hour. Nori is asleep within minutes of being in the car - we're all exhausted, new fans of BC Children's Hospital and Poison Control hotlines, not such big fans of the makers of the child proof caps on the Dramamine (was it on right? i think not... stupid me...)

We get Soph, she has spent the day in total happiness, taking pictures of herself with Krista, composing new songs and dances to Uncle Stu's guitar. When she gets home she changes into an entirely beige "explorer" outfit to match the new home-made binoculars she and Wade just crafted from two toilet roils and a cork, and wants to hear all the dramatic moments of the day, imagining how cute Eleanor was in all of them. We try to explain the dreariness of it all. She mentions she'd like to take a lot of medicine so she could read books, watch a DVD and have bubbles. I barely control myself, but manage well. I have promised her bubbles to never eat medicine.

I was supposed to write my sermon today for Sunday. Not sure where I'll fit it in now. It is on the chapter in Acts where Paul is bitten by a snake in a pile of kindling and all the natives think he'll die from the poison but he lives so they think he's a God. For real.

Lord, thank you. Lord help us.....