Is There A Doctor On Board?

We left for the US on Tuesday night or Wednesday considering it was a 2am flight. I should have known things wouldn't go so easy considering that I kept two out of school that day for not feeling well. Mariam had a fever on Saturday, stayed home from school on Sunday but seemed fine and no more fevers so she went to school on Monday. When I picked her up the teacher told me that Mariam started to cough in the class "it sounded croupy" she said.



I went home did a search on croup and didn't hear the distinctive ''seal bark" just a cough that I have become accustomed to this time a year with her. I use some cough medicine at night for her when it is at it's worse and than a cool steamer to help her sleep. Nothing more and she had no fevers so life when on as usual although she missed school on Tuesday. Which didn't bother me I had even more time to pack and less time in the car.



On Monday night Leyna complained about not feeling well and the next morning she seemed a bit warm. No fever but just to be on the safe side I kept her home from school. The thing with Leyna is when she is not feeling so well her entire world crashes and she is as moody as they come. With such a late flight I figured it would be better to keep her home so she can rest. And although she didn't seem her normal self she didn't have anything really wrong either.



Umar has had what seems like a few dozen teeth come in all at once and developed a fever before we left. This has been going on for the past two weeks so I gave him something to break the fever, it did and we went on to leave. The flight to London was made longer with him again getting a low grade fever so I gave him some meds and it broke. He appeared fine in London, had steak for breakfast (takes after his brother) and was his normal self.



On the flight to London about two hours in he had a fever again and I treated it the same way. But than the cough came and after just reading about croup I knew things were about to get worse. Between me and Mr. Man he was passed back and forth, he didn't eat, he drank some milk and at some point developed a very bad cough. During one of his stays on my chest he decided to bless my world with the worst thing, throwing up right down my chest. Oh yes the plight of a covering woman in the midst of a long flight. I cleaned up as best I could and settled on smelling like throw up for the duration of my trip.



I went back to my seat and got Umar to change him which is when I noticed his breathing was strange. It might have been that he was lying flat on his back but it was not something he had done before. My worry with croup and him having DS is that his little airway, which is much smaller than any of my other children, would be that it closes up and he won't be able to breath. We had a good two hours until we landed so I asked Mr. Man to go and ask if there was a medical facility at the Chicago airport which is when the real drama of the trip started.



I was than met with two airline attendants, one guy who was super nice and made the funniest announcements on board and he had a list of questions for me. He left me and than I heard the announcement "Is there a doctor on board or a nurse or any other medical professional who would be willing to offer their services?" All I wanted to know is if Chicago had a clinic on site where I could go and have my baby boy checked out before continuing on to St. Louis. The attendant came back and told me that there was no one on board to help so they were contacting their Dr. who was in Texas.

He returned again with a slew of questions about Umar, his medical history, what problems he was having ect. He tried to take his temperature which didn't go well although I could feel the boy was burning up. I held him as he tried to sleep through all of this drama and explained to the attendant that there was only 2 hours left until landing and I'm sure he will be fine until than and all I really wanted to know if there were any medical services in Chicago where I could get a quick check on him. He understood but said they needed to do things for precaution and he would give me a map of O'Hare and where I could seek some medical help.

Some time passed and Umar continued to warm up but he was sleeping in between his coughs. I was than informed that after landing I would be met by medical staff who would assess Umar and let me know what to do. Before landing an announcement was made that everyone had to stay in their seats until medical staff could come on board and I never thought that I would be that medical hold up.

It happened once before a woman had difficulty breathing on flight. She was quite a few rows ahead of us so I don't know what the entire problem was about I did catch comments of 'asthma' and noticed she was laying between three seats with oxygen. Not a position anyone wants to be in, a medical concern and your feet are so far from the ground. Even if it is a small thing it certainly adds to the panic and to top it off your confined to the stares and comments of others.

Upon landing medical staff came on board and soon realized the best place for a family of 7 was to be off the plane to assess my little man. I was introduced to the two medics complete with an ambulance, a CDC representative, an American Airlines rep, a customs guy who was able to process our passports right there and someone else I don't even remember. Umar had a fever of 103 and things were quite hectic. I was told by the AA rep. they wouldn't allow me on board with his fever that I had to go to the hospital and not to worry about the rest of my family as they would go without me and I would join them by the latest 10 pm that night. Don't worry about my stroller as they would 'assist' me upon my return from the ER as long as I had a note from the DR saying it was ok for my little man to fly.

Poor Umar didn't have a clue there was a lot of confusion and I grabbed some diapers, wipes and a bottle and off we went in the ambulance. It was when we were all strapped in and set to go that I realized I had all the boarding passes and absolutely no cash on me. The driver of the ambulance rushed back up to pass on the boarding passes and off we went to the ER.

The ER staff was super friendly and efficient for the most part. The nurse and the DR was super and so understanding of the entire situation. They quickly gave Umar some Motrin and Tylenol to get his fever down and set in to find out what was up with is cough. They performed an x ray to make sure his lungs were clear as he sounded raspy but they were just fine. The DR. wasn't sure that his cough was croup until he coughed loud enough for the entire ER to hear it. Than the staff said in unison "we have croup".

Than the ER Dr. in charge came in to check out Umar and suggested that I give him tamiflu with the assumption he had swine flu. I laughed at him and told him that was ridiculous he didn't have swine flu as I knew that from half of the family having it. He was shocked "Documented cases" yes and Umar didn't get it than and this didn't strike me as anything but croup. He left defeated and I treated Umar for croup as the original Dr. suggested and was on my way back to the airport at 5 something that evening.

I had a very nice taxi driver who told me her life story as I made my way back to the airport in the freezing cold. I assumed I would get all the 'assistance' I needed considering I was dead tired and didn't have a stroller to carry Umar who seemed to gain 20 pounds in the ER. I was met with nothing but attitude "your child got sick" when I was objecting to their lack of assistance considering they took my stroller. "It wasn't something I planned for!" I retorted as I explained for the 5th time the AA representative took my stroller after I told her three times it was to be given to me at the gate. "Get a manager please" I was done arguing with a man about how I was not in the condition to be carrying my son all over O'Hare after being up for over 24 hours at that point. What I got was the attitude queen "He is your child" she is brilliant and I see why she has a job.

After I refused to budge, literally, they sent me down stairs to see if I can check out a stroller. The women there were more helpful and told me they didn't have a stroller for me and they only thing they could do was provide a wheel chair. I was so tired that I wouldn't care if they put me in a luggage trolley to cart me and umar to the very last gate in terminal 2. All I knew is I didn't have enough energy to hold this growing boy and walk at the same time. I came prepared with a stroller knowing this and since it was the airline representative who made the decision to not give me my stroller while going into the ambulance I feel it was their duty to help me get to the gate. Especially when they ride a fat man in their luxury golf cart across the airport because he is in whatever 'first class' status they assigned to him than this tired Mama could be given some help.

I finally made it to the gate in a wheel chair and it tool all I had to stay awake and care for Umar until we could board the plane. I was last in line and made the decision to jump ahead of all the business men who were waiting to board. I was cold, tired and my arm was about to break off and I barely landed in my seat and buckle up. At one point a man plopped right next to me and I looked at him probably like the most crazy person he has every seen and asked

"where are you?"

"There" and he pointed to my seat which was in the middle and I realized Mr. Brilliant who gave me the seats put a man in between me and Umar.

"Oh, I guess we'll move on over" and I didn't make any motion to move I was that tired

"It is ok. Is he yours?" he looks at Umar

I look over at him and suddenly I realized how close these seats are "No I just picked him up along the way" for the life of me I don't know why people ask these things

He laughed "Oh I thought so since he looks so comfortable there"

I moved over struggling to buckle up he asks where I'm coming from and he recalls his trips from Russia and can totally relate at that point why I look so crazy. In two seconds I was nodding out and didn't care if I was snoring or not. I was less than an hour that we landed and I met up with the rest of my than freezing kids whose father didn't manage to find their coats. Really what would they do without me?

In The States

I've been in the states for over a week and been very busy. We came to the home with absolutely nothing in it so I've been shopping my little heart out. I blew my budget so I won't be able to shop anymore, which is good I'm a bit tired of fighting the crowds at the malls. Hopefully this will give me some time to finish up a few blog posts that are waiting to be published.