A Phone Call I Won't Forget

I had just dropped the boys off safely at school (which was only about a mile away from my house at the time) when the phone rang.


It was Dracen's kindergarten teacher's assistant.  I have gone to church with her for years.  


I knew immediately by the tone and tremble of her voice that something was horribly wrong.  


My body began to shake, my knees turned to jello, and I literally felt the color drain from my face as I leaned over on the kitchen counter to brace myself from crashing to the hard tile floor beneath me.  


"Dracen just turned blue and passed out..." she began.  "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!"  I bellowed.  


Charlie was, thankfully, home that day and as he heard my words his eyes grew big with horror and his heart seemed to skip beats as he jumped up from his seat.  


"The school nurse is with him now and we've called 911..." 


I didn't need to hear anymore... "I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!" I shouted. I  slammed the phone down, grabbed my keys and bolted out of the house and down the steps with my still uncombed hair and unmade face.  


My body was shaking and my mind was running wild as I threw the car into reverse with a jerk and stomped the gas pedal to the floor board, squealing tires as I turned out of the driveway at the top of the hill.  


Though the storm door was closed, the front door was left standing wide open and my little dog, Dixie, stared in bewilderment as we disappeared out of sight.  


We ran frantically into the school and the school secretary who saw us coming, met us at the office door and motioned us on (though it would have taken five grown men to make me stop and sign in).  


Charlie ran barefooted down the hall ahead of me.  We left the house in such a rush, he had not even taken time to put on shoes.  


We had beaten the ambulance there and when we made it to the classroom, there was Dracen, conscious and talking with the school nurse.


I rushed to his side and though my heart was still racing, I could feel the color slowly begin to return to my face.  


He was okay.  My baby was okay.  I could breathe again.  


The paramedics showed up shortly after we did, gave him a little once over, found nothing obviously wrong with him and suggested we take him on to his family doctor to be checked out thoroughly.


The doctor gave him a thorough exam, complete with blood tests, and deemed him perfectly healthy.  


He had been sick a few days earlier. Nothing serious.  Just stuffy head, low fever and minor sore throat.  Though he did not test positive for strep the doctor he had seen prescribed him Amoxicillin.  


He was five years old so of course, he was no stranger to the pink stuff. But my mother's intuition was burning like a fire inside of me and practically screaming at me, 


It was the Amoxicillin!  It was the Amoxicillin! 


When I brought this up to the doctor we saw the day of this incident,  he informed me there's no way it was the Amoxicillin and to keep giving it to him.  


I said okay but that feeling wouldn't go away.  He had just taken it before leaving for school that morning and he had only been at school mere minutes when he passed out.  


Nope.  There was no way I was giving him another dose of that stuff.


I read every article and piece of information I could dig up on Amoxicillin and discovered that he had been prescribed a pretty hefty dose for a little guy his size so I called the doctor up who prescribed it and he too assured me there was just no way on God's beautiful green earth this incident was caused by that medicine.  


There aren't many things in life that get me riled up enough to initiate a heated conversation.  Normally, I will go out of my way to avoid confrontation....Mrs. Non-Confrontational at your service!.... 


But waking my mama bear will do it every.single.time.  I snapped like a Poplar branch in a windstorm and lit into that unsuspecting doctor with all the fury, wrath and might I could muster.  


I was right and I knew it...could feel it in my bones...in my gut.  


I believe a mother's intuition is a powerful tool and gift bestowed by God and I was flat pissed off that I was being blown off.  The nerve!


That phone conversation ended in me hanging up the phone on the doctor, taking about five hundred deep breaths and calling to vent my frustrations to Charlie.  


The doctor called later in an attempt to smooth things over though he continued to stand his ground about the Amoxicillin.  


I remained calm but switched to a pediatrician and have never allowed him to take the pink stuff again.  







This post was written for Mama Kat's writer's workshop  and Jenny Matlock's  Alphabe-Thursday, the Letter A.