My sweet girl turned 3 yesterday (seriously, WHERE does the time go??), and we had an awesome day planned. After she played for a while in the Power Wheel we got her, we were going to grab donuts for breakfast (our tradition), and head up to Dalton to watch trains and let her take pictures with her new camera.

After Lucy went to bed on Tuesday night, we set to work wrapping presents and putting her car together. I set up a pretty nice display with which to surprise her the next morning and headed to bed.

Around midnight, Joe woke me screaming that Lucy was having trouble breathing. He gave her to me and called 911. Apparently, she had been pointing at her mouth and nodded when Joe asked if she had swallowed something though, of course, we had no idea what it might have been. We were scared to death. I seriously have never been that scared in my entire life.

Lucy calmed down a bit when she saw her gifts, so we rushed her to the car and sped to the hospital. When we got there, they didn’t seem to think there was anything seriously wrong with her (um, HELLO, my daughter said she swallowed something and was still having some trouble breathing), and we ended up waiting for more than an hour in the waiting room. Once we were taken back, we waited another 30 minutes or so for her nurse to come in. Joe had to actually go out twice to ask if our daughter was going to be seen.

When the nurse walked in, she saw Lucy walking around and said, “Oh, she’s fine.” Let me tell you, this momma was LIVID. She listened to Lucy’s heart and lungs, and then left. I was pretty P.O.’d by then and told Joe in no uncertain terms that we were never going to our local hospital again. We’ve never had a good experience there, and this just sealed the deal.

So, we waited. And, we waited. And, we waited. I went out and asked WHEN the doctor was going to come in and was told that Lucy was on the list to be seen. Obviously. However, a time frame would be awesome.

We waited another 20 minutes, and when Joe went back out to the desk, he was told it would be another 30-60 minutes before Lucy would be seen. So, we decided to leave and go to one of the hospitals in Rome.

Once we arrived, the girl at the front desk took one look at Lucy and called back, telling them there was a croupy child they needed to come get. Now, I know there wasn’t anyone else waiting, but I was impressed with their staff from the get-go.

When we got to our room, we had three nurses taking care of Lucy, and the doctor came in about 10 minutes later. She had an xray taken (and, apparently, Lucy had to be strapped to a chair with her arms held up because she wouldn’t stand still — definitely nothing that would hurt her but she was pretty traumatized by it) and diagnosed Lucy with croup. She gave her a steroid shot (traumatizing event No. 2) and a prescription for an antibiotic, and sent us on our way.

We got home around 6 a.m. and, after we let Lucy sit in her car and open her presents, we crashed for a few hours.

When we woke up, we tried to salvage Lucy’s day and took her to breakfast at Waffle House (her request). Afterward, we ran a few errands (and picked up a new toy for her) and then came home to nap. Then, we took her to Chili’s for dinner where the staff sang to her and gave her a brownie sundae. She was thrilled!

So, I think we made up for how her birthday began. We ended up having a really nice day celebrating our little girl.