Remembering Romania #11

Fedi and I are trying to recover from the biggest scare of my life. Two nights ago as we were praying in the New Year with about 40 guests, I was told to come upstairs quick, something was wrong with Ryan. He was in the bathroom throwing himself around and gasping for air. He couldn’t get enough to breathe. He had been having some chest congestion and a croup-like cough as had Annie and Steven. I had put him to bed upstairs. For about a full minute I didn’t know what to do except to try to hold him and calm him down. His eyes were wild though and he wouldn’t listen to me to hold still. Then I opened the bathroom window and held him up to the cold air. That gave him enough air to calm him. Beth (another one of my sisters) had told me before when her son Chad had an emergency with croup it would always get a little better when they would take him outside to go to the hospital. A doctor had told her the cool air would help temporarily but was not good in the long run. But temporarily was necessary.

We carried him to our room and had him lie there very still and just keep breathing. It still came hard and rasping. Others tried to call doctors but this is a stupid country with stupid ways. No one could get through, Romania doesn’t have enough phone lines and probably everyone was calling to wish everyone else a happy New Year. When we finally could get through the doctor’s babysitter answered and said they were at a party somewhere and it was impossible to reach them.

One person in our house said they had an inhaler at home. At the time we thought it would be better to go and get it rather to move him and go to the hospital. The people were telling Fedi under no circumstances should we go to the hospital. They would admit him, not let us be with him at all and the treatment would be very questionable.

It took Fedi about 1½ hours to come back with the inhaler. I watched every breath he took. I was so afraid he wouldn’t make it. There were about 6 people from the church in our room. They prayed for us. When Fedi came I hoped Ryan would be OK. The inhaler though, didn’t seem to help much. At one point Ryan said he had to go to the bathroom, jumped up to go, there was someone in it (we still had about 40 people there) so he started back to the room, then back to the bathroom and it was too much. Again he couldn’t breathe enough; again he went into a panic and threw himself around. I again grabbed him and lifted him up to the open window and tried to calm him down. It worked enough again to calm him so he could get enough air. I kept telling him that his only job was to relax and breathe, not to move. We would do everything for him. We changed him slowly as he had wet all over and put a pull-up on. I did everything slow because I wanted him to stay as relaxed as possible. The pull-up was a good idea because he had to go again. He wanted to get up but obeyed us when we told him to just go in the pull-up.

He had stared to run some fever so I gave him Motrin. As it was taking effect and his fever was breaking we decided to take him to the hospital. His breathing was unchanged still rasping and hard. He was dropping off to sleep on and off. I told Fedi to wait just a little more for his fever to drop. I was afraid just getting him dressed and down to the car would be too much for him. Plus it was almost morning and I was hopeful he would improve enough so we could move him better.

He was kind of funny too. I was watching every breath but I told Fedi I have to go to the bathroom. Ryan forced out the words “Mom, go to the bathroom, you always tell me to go, now I can get you back”. Another thing that was touching and funny. An older lady in our church kept telling Ryan how much God loved him and not to be afraid and that Jesus would help him. Ryan kept smiling and nodding and finally told me “Mom, it’s a little hard to keep smiling so long.”We left about 6:30 to go to the hospital. It went smoother than I expected. Ryan stayed calm as we dressed him, carried him to the car and for the bumpy ride down the Mountain. We tried over and over to call a doctor, as we were afraid of the hospital. No luck. At the hospital though everything went smooth. The lady doctor first gave him a shot to help him immediately and let us use an empty room to rest him as the shot took effect. They treated us very well. After he recovered some we left to try to fill the 4 prescriptions she gave us. We went to 6 different pharmacies and couldn’t find one open. Ryan was starting to get worse again so back to the hospital we went. They let us again go to the empty room, gave Ryan some medicine and put a humidifier on. He stared to do better again. There was no paper work for all of this except they wrote down our names. The total cost including the tip that Fedi gave them that had them treating us very well was $25. I wish we had gone hours earlier, but I was afraid to move him.At home he was still rasping, but better. I got scared once more when the loosened up phlegm almost clogged his airway again and he almost went in a panic again. All I can think of now is Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Lord.

I know I got a little behind over the holidays, so I want to hit some highlights of the last couple of weeks and catch up.On Dec. 22nd Fedi and Leventa drove to a town about 5 hours away to pick up some Christian Literature. Fedi donated $100 from the donation money for this. He got home about 1:30 in the morning after having a run in with a telephone pole. It was raining on already ice-packed roads and impossibly slippery. The next morning he rushed to fix the leak in the radiator from the accident, as he had to get in to pass out the packages to the prisoners at 10:00 a.m. The rain had changed to snow and we had about 8 inches of beautiful, sparkly snow. The kids and I went with him since I had to do some Christmas shopping. Fedi was worried about the damaged fender. If the Police see damage on a car you must have an accident report with you or you can get a ticket. They think you may have hit another car and not reported it.Fedi made it only a little late. He passed out the packages, was able to give a Christian message and to talk with the guys later. He did say though in order to donate the packages to the prisoners he had to fill out a form, have it copied 3 times, have them notarize and pay about $12. Goofy law.

Christmas Eve dawned nicely. No place we had to go, beautiful snow and Christmas presents to unwrap. It was great. We hiked up in the untouched snow to a gill with some sleds and did some extreme sled riding. It was so steep it was tough to get up. The first few rides went like a big snowplow. Not too fast but throwing snow all over. After that though we went so fast on the packed down snow that we always rolled at the end.

Christmas day Rebekah woke up sick, so I stayed home. It gave me a chance to clean as we were expecting company the next day. Fedi took the other kids in for a Christmas dinner at Csilla’s and the church service. The kids put on a play and I was told my 3 younger kids sang Away in the Manger very nicely for the church. It was also kind of funny because some organization had donated packages of toys for the kids in the Romanian church. There were my kids lined up with the rest, getting their missionary packages for the poor.

The next day Csilla and family plus another family came to play in the snow and spend the day. Rebekah seemed better in the morning, so I left her with Anni and hiked up with them up to the meadow. They had brought skis. Ryan and Steven got to try them out and they both liked it. When we got back though Rebekah had gotten sicker. The poor kid was miserable. She had fever of almost 104 and different aches all over. I was worried enough that I called Spark and Rhonda’s and talked to my cousin Peter Bossart M.D. who was staying at their house. He said the muscle aches were from being dehydrated and I needed to push the liquids more. I did this and also dosed her up with Motrin and Tylenol. She was better by the next day.

We spent the next few days getting ready for the New Year’s Eve party. Ten of the teenagers came a day early to help get ready. I also got Kitchen Cabinets finally on the same day. It looks so nice now to have somewhere to put things. Wednesday morning most of the people showed up. Fedi and I had to go in to get the food we bought from the donation money and a lady in church cooked up. It cost about $175. Anyway the day progressed nicely with the people having fun in the snow or all over the house. One guy brought his guitar and jammed it up with some great songs; we knew some of them in English. At about 11:00 we all (45) of us squished in our living room for a church service. Our neighbors came too. These were 3 young couples, most of who had never been to an evangelical service before. Leventa gave the service; we had some more singing, and then a time of prayer at about midnight. That’s when Ryan’s emergency happened. I don’t know what all happened after that but when we got back from the hospital the house was all cleaned up. Everyone was pretty much still there but they all started to make their way home as the day progressed. The last ones finally left in the evening. We kept Ryan close and concentrated on watching him. Fedi and I and Ryan slept down in the kitchen where we kept a pot of water going to put moisture in the air. We had a fairly good night. Every time I woke up to check on him it seemed his breathing was a little better, less noisy and stressed. Before we went to sleep I was still afraid. Mostly because Fedi and I were so exhausted (we did not sleep at all the night before) that I was worried we wouldn’t notice if he had trouble.

Now I am up today. Csilla, Jozsef and the girls plus the same neighbor family that came after Christmas came for the day and to spend the night. We all went skiing down the road. (Csilla and I took turns staying with Ryan and the other 2 little kids). I forgot to write about something that has me excited. This lady that came with Csilla is a schoolteacher. She had arranged for us to borrow some left over skis that the school system had for almost nothing ($12) for 6 sets until April. Now our whole family is set. It was really fun. Fedi pulled us with ropes up the road (by now it is snow packed) and we skied down. The pace was perfect for beginners. Fast enough for a thrill but not at all too fast. Rebekah came in and said “That was so fun!”