Losing Faith

I lost my faith in humanity two weeks ago.

I did.

It was one of the worst experiences in my life. Thankfully it was almost restored by the end of the day.

I was driving in my van with my three children. It was almost eleven in the morning and we were on a secondary highway. Scott was in his truck heading in the opposite direction that we were driving, he had our cell phone on him.
Alyson started to cough and in moments it went from a normal cough to a coughing fit. I adjusted my rear view mirror so that I could keep an eye on her.  She started choking and her eyes were starting to look huge. She caught her breathe and the only thing I could try and wrap my mind around was trying to recall where the hospital was in the direction I was driving.

 The coughing wasn't scaring me, losing her breath was. Seconds later she started coughing again, her eyes were bulging and her face started turning purple. I yanked the wheel and pulled the van off to the side of the highway. I grabbed Alyson out of her seat and ran to the back of the van and started trying to hail down traffic. I could have counted between fifteen and twenty cars. Not one person stopped. 

I never felt more useless in my entire life. My child was trying to breath and I had no way to get her where she needed to go. I looked around for a house so I could ask to use the phone to call for an ambulance, but I was pulled over in a fairly isolated area. The only thing I could think of was to grab my GPS and find out where the nearest hospital was. It read ten kilometers away, I didn't feel like I had any other choice. There is an option of calling for help on my GPS but I was scared it wouldn't work, because I couldn't actually speak to a real person. I strapped Alyson back in her car seat and asked Destyni to try and keep her distracted. I drove like a mad woman to the address that was given, it took me to the middle of a industrial park. No hospital, no emergency department.

I drove up to a man and woman that were walking into a building and asked them for directions to the hospital. The man spoke broken English while his wife walked away from us. It was horrible. For ten whole seconds I sat in my van, tears flowing, anger and frustration tearing through me. Alyson started coughing again. I jumped out of the van and ran into the closest business I could find. Two girls working in the building called the paramedics. In  minutes I had Alyson in my arms, trying to keep her calm and at least fifteen people offering help. By the time the paramedics had Alyson in their care the group of people had figured out how to get a hold of Scott, how to get Jonathan and Desytni to the hospital  and they restored most of my courage again. There are still really good people left in the world, even if I couldn't find one on the side of a highway.

Alyson is doing great. It was one of the scariest moments of my life but she is fine now. The doctor said it was croup and she was congested. She was sent home later the same day. Many days after the fact I am still shaken to the core, still in slight shock that no one would pull over and offer help. I am beyond thankful that Alyson is fine, that nothing serious happened but I pray that I am never in a situation where I lose faith in humanity again.