a trip to the ER.  Why does nearly every one of our vacations have a trip to the emergency room thrown in.  Why, oh why is it so?

We'll get back to that in just a moment though as we backtrack to a little earlier in the day yesterday when we made the trek down to the surf capital of Victoria, Torquay, which is situated along the Great Ocean Road.  It's also where my beautiful girlfriend Tracey and her family live.  For those who don't know Tracey she was a bridesmaid in my wedding (along with my sister).  We've been friends for many, many years and she was one of my birthing partners (along with my parents) when I had Jay ... she was also 7 months pregnant at the time with her first son.

Photographs courtesy of Airlie, age 8 - excluding the ones that have her in them obviously LOL

Me and Tracey

My kids, destroying somebody's house?  Couldn't be!  These decorative sticks did once belong in a beautiful glass vase.  Not anymore they don't.

The shoe thief caught on camera

The boys on the playstation in the theatre room.  I want me one of those rooms.  So green.

No this photograph is not upside down, just my little girl is :)

Open the drawers.

Close the drawers.

Isn't this the sweetest little face. 

Supermodel Airlie striking a pose.

Okay now onto the 'fun' of the day.  So Marisol was having asthma attacks throughout the day, but these were being taken care of by her asthma medication.  As I strapped her into the car to go home she absolutely lost her mind and screamed her lungs out - not normal for her.  The screaming/gasping for air/coughing/ wheezing fun lasted for about an hour.  We were fairly close to the city by this time and her medication was no longer being effective so we called into the Royal Children's Hospital to have her seen by a doctor. 

We walk into the ER, they take one look at her, I get as far as telling them she's an asthmatic before we are marched directly past everyone waiting to be seen and straight into the resuscitation ward - she wasn't unconscious but she was definitely having a lot of trouble breathing.  She immediately threw up over me before I could even get her on the bed.  They gave her Ventolin, Atrovent and Prednisolone.   

After an hour of having a nurse stay with us to monitor her they moved us into a room in the ER where she immediately decided to throw up again, fabulous.  She was then on Ventolin every 20 minutes for an hour while they watched her closely and had more Atrovent too.  My sister came by and picked up the boys and met up with mum so she could take them home so I could stay with Marisol. That was a big relief as I didn't know at this stage how long we would need to stay there.  At around 11:30 (we had been there since 6:30) she had managed to go for 1 1/2 hours without asthma medication so they decided they would move us into a ward so they could keep an eye on her overnight.  Unfortunately while they were getting everything arranged for us to move she took an unexpected turn for the worse.  All of a sudden her monitors started beeping, the doctor and nurse came in to see what was going on.  They were standing behind me and I thought she was just having another asthma attack as her breathing was very laboured again but out of the corner of my eye I saw the doctor and nurse giving each other a 'silent nod'.  I knew at that point there was something they weren't telling me.  They disappeared out of the room very quickly.

Within a couple of minutes they came back in to tell us we'd be moving rooms again.  They were very calm so I didn't think anything too bad was going on.  They wheeled us straight back into the resuscitation ward where we were met by a team.  Crap.  They immediately set up an IV, game her some medication, ordered lab work and hooked her up to oxygen.  Apparently the monitors had detected her O2 levels were decreasing and her heart rate had risen quite a bit and they were a little concerned - or as her doctor said she gave them 'a little scare'.  After an hour she started to stabilize so she was taken off for a chest x-ray and we were returned to our room in the ER with plans of staying in a ward overnight abolished as they wanted to continue monitoring her there instead.  She remained on the oxygen throughout the night and was given some fluids through the IV as well as regular ventolin treatments.  In the morning they tried to remove the oxygen but she wasn't ready and her numbers dropped again so they hooked her back up for a couple more hours before trying again.  That time successfully and so we were moved into a ward where they could monitor her throughout the day.  We are now home and all is well.  We have an action plan in place for any further attacks and she's on medication for the next couple of days.

I need to give some kudos to the Royal Childrens.  They were absolutely fantastic.  They had a couple of people come around in costume to entertain the kids in the room (before the boys were picked up), a Christian group popped in to see us with some wonderful little gifts for Marisol, they kept a TV in every room we were moved to with lots of kids videos on hand to distract her, gave me a tour of the wards so I knew where I could make myself coffee, get diapers, shower and have some time out if I needed it while she napped.  They wheeled in a bed for me in the early hours of the morning when we were back in our ER room so I could sleep next to her and made me breakfast in the morning (it wasn't great so I ended up going downstairs to a cafe, but it was the thought that counted).  They really took care of us while we were there.