Lessons in First Aide

I've been CPR/First Aide certified a few times in my life. Mainly just as a requirement for a job, and all with the hope of never having to actually put to practice any of what was learned. As a parent, even just of one small person, those skills suddenly take on a new kind of importance.

So maybe I might have over-reacted just a little, first-time mom and all, but my daughter does tend to put anything...and everything...into her mouth to eat. I've become pretty attuned to the too silent silences, and the pauses taken in a bounding crawl across the floor. I've learned to recognize the cues that she's carrying something small in the pocket of her cheeks by these certain little noises she makes or the way she sucks her lip. And yet, even with all these newly acquired skills, I honestly couldn't begin to guess all the things my daughter has probably ingested.

One day I was playing with Cadence outside. We were looking at a fish pond we have in our back yard and she reached for a dry leaf. I saw this, with my ever-watchful eye, and decided it would be a good time to head inside, proud that I had averted a leaf-eating catastrophe. As I headed back to the house, child on hip, to my surprise I see the small brown tip of a leaf poking through her fingers. I quickly removed the offending shard of nature and continued up the back stairs looking intently at my child's countenance. Sure enough, the telltale signs were there...soft grunting, small lip smacks, and faint sucking sounds....she had something in her mouth!

Horrified at the thought that she might eat this mysterious object, I attempted to fish the thing out with my finger. In protest she met my finger jabs toward her mouth with arm flails, clenched jaws, and head swerves. I then placed my child, ever so gently, on the floor and used one arm to keep her arms out of the way while I attempted to execute the Red Cross approved finger-sweep technique. Again met with some resistance, I finally managed to maneuver my finger past her lips and into the pockets of her cheeks, and finally deeply towards the back of her throat...a little too deeply.

What came next was not anything my first aid classes had prepared me for. The unmistakable sounds of someone about to hurl. As my little one began to make retching sounds I quickly scooped her into my arms and ran to the kitchen sink, where I tried to hold her waiting for the inevitable to come. With each heave she tried to cling to my chest, a bewildered look on her face and small tears beginning to stream from the corners of her eyes. Needless to say, a tiny shard of dry leaf did produce itself from her mouth, along with the entire contents of her stomach from the past two hours.

The moral of the story...do not attempt first aide skills except for in actual emergencies. Small amounts of yard debris, dirt, paper, or carpet fuzz have probably never harmed any of us. And if you do intend to actually practice being a hero someday, it might not hurt to be prepared with a spare change of clothes for you and the victim, I mean recipient, of your bravery.