Snowblindness

Oh, for all of my complaining about snowstorms... :)

And my marveling at Lily's height...

And my complaining about her being hard to keep up with and into everything...

For anyone who hasn't already heard, hasn't kept up with the drama on facebook, or just wants the complete story all in one place, this is the best I can do on very little sleep with a very fuzzy brain:

My mom and Zoe spent the night on Monday night. Mom likes to read at night so she used the booklight she uses whenever she stays here, left it laying on the floor but told me she'd had it out, etc. I picked it up and put it on a shelf so Lily wouldn't get it. Tuesday late morning I put Lily in that room so I could run to the bathroom and pee. Now I'm sure there are plenty of people that don't want to hear me talk about peeing, but let it be said that I generally take Lily with me everywhere, including to the bathroom when I need to pee. But Tuesday morning I left Lily in a gated room alone for a minute and hurried back to her to find her standing in the middle of the room with the booklight laying on the floor by her feet. The back was (somehow) off and I immediately saw there was only one battery in it. First I swept her mouth and found nothing, then tore the room apart looking for the missing battery. My heart is pounding in my chest and I'm crawling around on the floor running my hands through the (shaggy) rug and Lily is just playing happily nearby like nothing has happened. So part of me is sure she has swallowed a battery. The rest of me is sure that she's ok. I called Benjamin and told him I think our daughter swallowed a battery. He says they're sealed up, it's no big deal, if she's acting fine not to worry. I called my mom and she told me to watch her carefully and make sure she poops it out eventually. All of this makes sense to me. But eventually I talk to a friend who's in nursing school and she tells me she doesn't want to scare me but that it is a big deal, and gave me a battery poison control number to call. They were wonderful to talk to, but told me I needed to take Lily to the ER for an x-ray. So off we went to the York Hospital ER for an x-ray. So Lily dressed in a tiny hospital gown and waited for her x-ray.
The x-ray ended up showing the battery was in her stomach. It was awful to get the confirmation that yes, my baby had swallowed a battery, but it was a relief to know it wasn't in her esophagus (I don't feel like getting into the science of it, but google it if you're curious and/or morbid.) We were then transferred to Hershey Medical Center because apparently they are the only hospital in the area that deals with these sorts of things. They offered to arrange transport (ambulance) but the doctor agreed that Lily would do better riding in her carseat with me driving and we would most likely get there faster if we didn't have to wait for the arranged transport. So off we went in my recalled Toyota in the impending snowstorm to a hospital that I dread because of all of Aunt Anna's trials there. :( The doctor in the York ER said that based on the size of the battery he was pretty sure they would want to do surgery to remove it, so driving up to Hershey I was a nervous wreck.

Benjamin met us in Hershey, and because of the bad weather the Hershey ER was amazingly quiet and empty. Lily was the superstar patient. She was called the Energizer Bunny, Supercharged, Amped Baby, Battery Baby, but mostly they just thought she was a cutie. She played pretty happily for most of the evening.

I think this picture, more than any other, sums up the whole experience:
Lily is happy and playful, seeing what she can get into, and I am struggling with a migraine and fear, guilt, worry, and shame like I have never known. And Benjamin just kept taking lots of pictures.

Anyway, while in the Hershey ER we were seen by several doctors and a pediatric surgeon and his whole team of residents. They agreed on watchful waiting to see if the battery would pass. The surgeon said he wanted to make the decision as if it were a sunny day in June and not a blizzard in February. But it was a blizzard in February, and we were scheduled to have another x-ray to check on the battery's movement the next day. So we got a hotel room near the hospital knowing that even if we made it home that night we would probably not have much of a chance of making it to any hospital (especially back to Hershey) if and when we needed to.
Above you see Lily getting into everything in the hotel room. Below you see Benjamin on Wednesday morning using his upper body to plow the snow off of the car. Lily and I watched from the window and laughed at him. :)
Anyway, then we had lots of waiting in the pediatric radiology department at the hospital, which fortunately was set up as an amazing wonderland of a play area:



And more x-rays:
Which confirmed that the battery had not moved, so they were going to need to go in and take it out. :( We were then whisked off to the pre-op area where things got miserable pretty quickly. Lily napped on me for a little while while paperwork was processed and consent forms were signed:

The anesthesiologist came and gave her a cocktail that made her a bit loopy and we walked with her down the hall where he had us say goodbye. :(
And I know Benjamin was taking pictures to keep himself busy because he took pictures like this:
And he said heartbreaking things like he couldn't wait to high-five her again. The wait while she was in surgery was agonizing and nerve-wracking. I don't know how long it was but it felt like forever. I think it was really only an hour or so but really I have no idea. When they finally called us to come to the recovery room we headed up to find her but she woke before we got there and was screaming bloody murder. There are definitely no pictures from that ordeal because it was truly, truly awful. She was screaming and wretching around and fighting her IV and was gag/hack/burp/coughing violently because she had so much gas in her gut from the procedure. It took about an hour to get her to settle down, but eventually she fell asleep in my arms:
And not a good picture of me AT ALL (but it was a rough 24 hours at that point) but I'm including it because it shows Lily in her too-big PJ pants, no shirt, and her furry boots. When she was really upset Benjamin wanted to put her boots on her because he thought it would help. :)
The nurse in recovery thought it would help Lily to turn the TV on to drown out the hospital sounds. She put it on the Disney channel or something. After she left the room I switched it to Animal Planet. It was a boring bird show, but eventually it got Lily's attention and definitely helped her come back to herself. :)


And after some time spent in recovery we were allowed to take our sweet girl home. Only we couldn't go home because the entire state of PA had basically shut down, including the interstates we would need to get home. So we got some food at the hospital cafeteria and I got some good Lily hugs:
And we spent yet another night at a hotel in Hershey, and this morning around 10 we packed up to head home. Only Benjamin didn't come home with us. He went to work. Unshaven, in the same clothes he'd been wearing since Tuesday morning. Oh my... I guess he took this picture from the road:
Lily fell asleep in the car on the way home, which really made me appreciate the fact that the neighbors had cleared all of the snow in our driveway for us all the way up into the carport, so I was able to get her out of the car and carry her up to her crib to nap. The neighbors have truly been wonderful and we can't thank them enough.

And I'm sure I've missed plenty of details and shared too much of others, but I am mentally and emotionally fried. However, I won't forget this detail:
The booklight, with the battery she didn't eat. Benjamin took the picture (hence the coins for reference?)

So the moral of the story is- lots of things. I need to go through this house and get rid of everything that is unnecessary. I don't have the time or energy to keep up with all of the little pieces of junk that she can get into. I need to simplify! No matter how well I clean and how closely I watch her it could always be something. She is quick and smart and her sweet, sweet nature hides a real love of troublemaking. And we are so blessed and lucky. It could have been so much worse. And we are more in love with Lily than we ever could have imagined. I'm sure part of it is just the relief that she's ok. We're so thankful that she's a strong, healthy girl and that this is the worst thing that's happened in her life so far. So here's hoping some snow melts before we have to go through anything like this again. :)

(PS- When talking to one of the nurses about the booklight she said she thinks Lily will be an engineer. When I told her Lily comes from a family of engineers she laughed and said she had no idea, but that definitely confirms it.)