As parents, we can’t go around living our lives in fear of every bump and bruise, but we CAN do our duty to spread awareness when our children have an accident or illness that could have been avoided. One mom’s Facebook post after her daughter’s innocent play with a pool noodle led to a life-threatening illness is going viral for just that reason – awareness. Lacey Grace, who wrote the post, wants parents to be aware not so much about the pool noodle, but about water in the lungs can do to a person, even if they SEEM to be ok.
Lacey Grace says that it was ANOTHER parent’s similar article about his child that led her to seek medical treatment for her daughter, and so in that spirit, she wanted to “pay it forward” with awareness, and tell everyone what happened to her daughter Elianna. She says:
I contemplated whether or not this was worth posting, and at the end of the day, I am where I am because of something another Dad posted sometime last year. If I can even help save one child, this is worth it for me.
Lacey Grace, Facebook
“Here it goes … Elianna was playing in the pool with a “pool noodle” on Saturday, and as many many children do every day, she was blowing in one end and blowing water out the other. By 100% freak accident, Elianna put her mouth to blow out at the same time someone blew in the other end, causing the water to shoot directly down her throat. She threw up immediately but didn’t really have any other notable things happen. 30 minutes after the “accident” she was totally fine – normal, playing, eating, etc. The next day, even, she was fine. Come Monday she developed a fever. Kids get fevers, this is normal. I didn’t think much. Tuesday she slept most of the day but still overall looked fine. Sent her to school Wednesday and got a call in the afternoon that her fever was back.
I kept replaying that pool scene in my head and remembered reading a story last year about a Dad in Texas whose son passed away because he went untreated after inhaling a bunch of pool water. I wasn’t going to let that be Elianna.
We went from school to the urgent care, hoping the doctor would say “her lungs sound great, it’s just viral, etc”. We were there about 10 minutes when the doctor said to get her to the nearest ER as soon as possible. Her heart rate was crazy high, her oxygen was low, and her skin was turning purple which suggested chemical infection.
Went to the nearest ER where they did a chest X-ray and showed inflammation and infection caused from pool chemicals.
