when life flashes before your eyes

ok, most everyone knows about what happened to Lily this past week. There are several stories going around so I'm going to clear that up first....
NO SHE WAS NOT IN THE POOL!!!

So, on Monday I came home from work was straightening up a little and getting ready to cook supper, Dean was outside playing, Lily was in the house. Richard had gone to the doctor that day for his eyes, and wanted me to help put some eye drops in. Dean came back in side and when he went out again, Lily managed to sneak out side. When I looked up she was on the porch, so I put my head down to put the drops in Richards eyes. He may have blinked maybe 8-10 times when Dean came running in the house and said "Sissy hurt, Sissy in water, I pulled her out."

ok so panic set in. We jumped up and I screamed Lily's on the ground she's not moving. I don't know how we managed to get out of the door and it seems like our feet never hit the ground and we coasted over about 15-20 feet out side.. There was my little girl laying there BECIDE the pool. From what we can tell, it looked like she slipped and fell into the feet bucket which had about 4 inches of water in it, she must have lost her breath or got knocked out or something. She was on her back and there was foam and blood coming from her mouth and nose.. no breathing or even attepting to breath.. at that moment i felt my heart stop and vomit rising in my throat. I have to mention that Richard's instincts took over he flipped her over and stimulated her back which thankfully caused her to throw up. He did this several times...by this time 911 had been called and my in laws were running over, my brother in law told us that our call was the 3rd one for otway and they only have 2 ambulances... (more panic) Richard to Pat to get on the phone and tell them we needed a medic now..something about ASR and drowning...by that time my head was spinning in several directions and all i could get out was "Please dont take my baby!!!" Thanks to my sister in law (who is 8 months pregnant) her and her daughter Bri stayed with me holding me up and helping me to remember to breathe...The ambulance got there just as a paramedic was getting there, which they didnt even make it in the drive way...Richard was running into the ambulance with her, and instructed his mom to call mine and get me to the hospital..My mom got me to the hospital I think in like 10 minutes...I called for a police escort to the hospital and to this day still havent seen him yet.... Abouth this time, my aunt Sherry called me and told me she saw Lily and she was screaming...They let me go straight back and there was my little girl laying there on O2 so weak and all the blood vessels in her eyelids and around them had busted...So I crawled in the bed and held her...the doctor came in and told us they were sending her to pitt..they had requested an ambulance but, pitt sent a chopper (which i was glad for since it was faster)
we go back home and get clothes, the medic from the ambulance calls us and tells us she did great, her O2 stats were back up to 99 and 100 with out oxygen. We arrived at Pitt County Memorial Hospital about 2 1/2 hours later (seemed like so much longer) they had already asessed her, so they bring a bed in instead of a crib for us to lay on around 1:30am her iv keeps occluding and Richard was mentioning that he was getting really hot and thought he had bit his lip..they took Lily into the treatment room to fix her IV and Richard looks up and says Would one of you go get my wife I need to go to the ER....they look at him and he was so swollen he looked liked Will Smith when he played HITCH and was in the drug store with an allergic reaction...So needless to say bless his heart he spent all night in the ER...the next morning the doctors came in and said we could go home all of the fluid was gone and she had been with out oxygen all night long.

So, we came home, and called Dean's autism doctor to see if anything needed to be done for him since, he was the one who came and got us and saw the whole thing..she said it sounded like he was doing fine and asked us if we wanted to put Lily in the hyperbaric chamber because sometimes after a drowning incident days later blood work would be off and the chamber would prevent that...so wednesday and thursday we were in wilmington doing that she did really good with it..i am extremly closterphobic so richard got in with her and the 2nd time she even went to sleep...so that is where we are now...she is doing really good, so is Dean, she goes back to the doctor for a check up today... so that is where we are at now....she is not quite back up to par, but we are so amazingly greatful to have a 2nd chance with her...we came so close to losing her i never ever wanna have that feeling again and would never wish it on my worst enemy...


a very postive thing came out of it all :
I was having some doubts about faith and things like that since my father passed away, and all I can say is that she is alive by the grace of God and all of those doubts are compleatly gone. I know I saw his work that day and am so truly grateful that He had a hand in helping Richard stay so compleatly calm and do what needed to be done to save his daughter, He also had a hand in letting Dean communicate with us and that Dean knew to come and get us, because after that happened he reverted back and was unable to communicate for a while..