(please click on above thumbnails to view images)
I have decided to go for a post of peaceful images of flowers at our cabin for today. My brain needs a little zen at the moment as our weekend did not go as planned.
Now when most people say their weekend didn’t go as planned events such as car trouble, bad weather or a change in work schedules usually come to mind; our was different. On Friday night we drove up to our cabin, we had a meeting we wanted to attend on Saturday and thought going up the night before would mean we could sleep in late before heading off to the afternoon meeting. We were awoken just after 7:00 am by a thumping noise, at first we thought “oh no, not squirrels in the attic again”, and then the thumping got louder and louder as if someone was jumping on top of the roof. The cabin was shaking. At that moment my husband shouted “the kids”, ran into their room, and found our eldest in a full-blown seizure on the top bunk bed. Pure panic took hold.
My husband shouts “call 911” as he keeps our son as safe as possible. I find the phone, dial the number, at this point our four other children are shrieking hysterically with fear. The thrashing stops, then nothing. Our son is breathing but no response to anything. I am now on the phone to 911, they get the details of our son, I am describing everything, and then they ask for our address.
We are at a rural address, it is full of “TWP”‘s and “RD”‘s and numbers, a lot of numbers, especially when you are panicked. My mind races and then I realize the only thing I can do is run down the road and read the sign to the 911 operator. My husband is with our son. Our other children are on the couch screaming thinking their brother will die. I run down the gravel road in bare feet and pajamas to get the address so that we can get help.
This is my public service announcement – “WRITE DOWN YOUR RURAL ADDRESS AND KEEP IT CLOSE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.”
I finally give the address to the 911 operator, run back down the road, and find our son still isn’t responding but is breathing. The first responders are dispatched. We wait for what seemed an eternity but in fact was about half an hour. The 911 operator talked to us constantly, reassuring us, asking our son’s condition. A few minutes before the ambulance arrived our son started mumbling and moaning with some weird jerky body movements. We start to feel a bit better with this. Our second son had a couple of seizures as a toddler with fevers, and had come out of them fairly quickly compared to what we had just witnessed. A bit of moaning at this point seemed like progress. Just as the first responders entered the cabin our son tried to sit up. My husband said it was uncanny. It was also a huge relief.
They checked out our son, took all the vitals, and readied him for transport to the hospital. We arrived at the Stollery Children’s Hospital roughly an hour later. The first responders were brilliant. I can not say enough about how great they were. They waited with us until our son was taken over by the hospital and the fantastic care did not end there. Admission, nurses, doctors, everyone was great. They were pleasant, polite and efficient. Tests done, even a CT scan, and all was done quickly. The hospital was clean, cheerfully decorated and the waiting room was great for our other children as it had video games, an aquarium, toys and TV’s.
Four hours later we were relieved to find all the tests had come back normal. We still have follow-up testing to do, but we are blessed that our son seems fine.
As you can imagine we are all still a little on edge, at night we can’t help but check on the kids a few extra times, but knock on wood all seems well.
We will never again say “Our weekend didn’t go as planned.” when something little, like rain on a camping trip, happens.
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I have been toying with mixing naturally dyed cloth with eco-printing. There have been some disasters and disappointments along the way. Sometimes an idea on paper doesn’t exactly work in the dye pot. This time I finally achieved a useable result. The fabric is dyed with marigold grown in my garden and madder, plus eco-printed with rose leaves from my front garden. The fabric is 100% cotton and measures 22 inches by 45 inches, so a decent sized piece of fabric to work with.
Interestingly, when I unbundled the piece there were tons of little spots that seemed to resist the dyeing and eco-printing in the very centre of the dots. I have no idea what created the dots, but I guess that is the joy of eco-printing, never knowing exactly what the final result will be.
h..... the blog 
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