So I thought I might detail what happened on Thursday night (January 15, 2009), as I've told the story to probably 8 different doctors; there is also the chance that it may help someone recognize what is going on with their child. I also imagine that Abby may get a kick out of reading this someday.
On Thursday night, I got home a
little early from work at about
When I went back into her room, she
was in her crib lying on her side with her eyes open. I called out to her a bit and started rubbing
her side and back to try and get her up.
She wasn’t really responding to this, and I also noticed that she had a
bit of saliva coming out of her mouth.
At this point I decided to tempt her awake with some Propel (energy
drink), and went to go get it from the fridge.
When I got back to her room, I put it in front of her, and there really
wasn’t any response. At this time I also
noticed that she was somewhat rhythmically breathing, pursing her lips, and
lightly clenching her hand. When I
noticed this I immediately felt something was wrong and began to forcefully try
and get her to respond to me. With no
response, I pulled her out of the crib, noticed that she was very hot, and saw
that her eyes were off in another world.
At this point she was not limp and she wasn’t rigid, but no matter what
I did she didn’t speak or show any response to stimulation. I called Gretchen and told her to come home
immediately as something wasn’t right with Abby. At this time I also saw Abby in better light;
her face was very pasty and her lips and nose looked like they were slightly
purplish and bluish. I decided to take
Abby to the Urgent Care about a mile from the house.
I rushed into the Urgent Care and let them know that Abby was unresponsive to any stimulation. Her eyes were still open as I carried her, but she was just looking off into space. They immediately called 911 and had me bring her back into one of the rooms. They started taking her vitals, and at about this time she started having more pronounced rhythmic twitches of her entire leg and arm (the paramedics said that it was isolated primarily to the left side). I kept calling her name and tried to get her to respond in anyway; looking at me, squeezing my hand, or any movement at all.
The paramedics arrived a few minutes later and immediately began to triage the situation. I must say that I was extremely impressed with this group of guys and gal. They were very confident in what they were doing, and immediately put me to ease (as calm as I could feel). They were concerned with how hot she was, and so we took her clothes off and put wet cloths on her body to try and bring her temperature down. After assessing the situation, they put her on their gurney to take her to the hospital. They started to wheel her away from me (down the hallway and I couldn’t be right by her side), she had a violent convulsion and they immediately put the belts over her to keep her down. I like to think of this as a good sign as this was the first time that I wasn’t right by her side.
The paramedics had me ride up front in the ambulance so they could work on her in the back without me being in the way. I had called Gretchen a couple of times at this point, as she was at our friends’ The Brown’s house where she was dropping off Kaiya to stay with them. The paramedics were asking me all sorts of questions about what she had eaten that day, if she had hit her head on anything, if she had a history of this, if there was a history of this in our family, etc. I would also hear them calling out Abby’s name to try and get her to respond to them. During the ambulance ride was the first time I had heard them talking about a seizure, but I still didn’t have any idea what was going on.
The paramedics took us to UC Davis
Children’s Hospital in downtown
In the ER they gave her an IV stint
in both of her hands, and began hooking her up to multiple machines to get her
pulse, blood pressure, and other vitals; she seemed to have so many tubes and
wires coming off of her. Somewhere
around this time the paramedics were getting ready to leave, I hugged them and
thanked them for everything they had done.
The doctors and nurses began to try and wake her up, and asked me to try
and wake her up as well. It was about
this same time that Gretchen came to the room with
While she was still somewhat calm and out of it, the doctors wanted to perform the cat scan and do a chest x-ray. The chest x-ray was pretty straight forward and we were able to do it on the gurney. Prior to the cat scan I was able to give her a priesthood blessing which helped ease some of Gretchen and my tension. The cat scan required her to be wheeled into another room and placed on another gurney. The room was dark, they taped her head into position, and prepared her for the cat scan. I thought I saw her eyelids flutter, but I wasn’t too sure.
After the cat scan they brought her back to the ER room, where they continued to monitor her vitals. It was sometime in the next few minutes that she opened her eyes and talked a little with us. We were elated. She seemed a little confused with all of the stuff on her hands, but laughed when we told her it looked like she had ketchup on her hands (it was blood from the IV stick). She seemed to have no recollection of anything that had transpired. After being awake with us for a few minutes, she fell back asleep.
The doctors gave us the rundown of
what may have happened, and told us about what to expect in the next couple of
days. It appeared that Abby had had a
seizure, but they were trying to determine the cause. The preliminary look at the cat scan revealed nothing abnormal. A relatively common thing to happen to kids
Abby’s age (3 years and 1 month), are febrile seizures, which is caused by a
rapidly rising temperature. They weren’t
convinced this was the cause either as she didn’t have an
abnormally high temperature, and her seizure convulsions were localized
to the left side of her body. The
doctors let us know they were going to need to do more tests, primarily an
While down in the ER, early in the
morning on Friday (i.e. –
We ended up staying in the ER until
mid-afternoon on Friday as they didn’t have any rooms available upstairs on the
pediatrics floor. When we did finally
get upstairs we were delighted to have a large room all to ourselves, and we
were right next store to the playroom.
Our nurse Kelly was very nice and kept us up to date with everything
that was going on. Over the previous 20
hours, I told what had happened to about 8 different pediatricians and
neurologists; they were all excited to look at the results of all of her
tests. Our friend Christian (he had
given Gretchen a ride to the ER, and Kaiya was staying at their house), came to
pick Gretchen and Duncan up at about 4:30 on Friday afternoon, so she could go
get Kaiya and get some of Abby’s things.
I went to the playroom with Abby (along with her IV drip and heart rate
monitor), and we played around. She
ended up pulling her IV drip apart from her hand which caused a bunch of blood
to come back thru the IV. She seemed a
little mesmerized by the whole thing, and it was quickly handled. Gretchen came back with Kaiya and Duncan a
few hours later and the girls were happy to see each other (we wish that lasted
longer). We all hung out together for
awhile, Abby ended up having another fever of 101.4, but she got some Tylenol
and the fever came down. Gretchen left
with Kaiya around
Gretchen came back on Saturday morning with Kaiya and Duncan, and we met with more doctors, primarily the chief neurologist and chief pediatrician. The chief neurologist basically said that they believe it was a febrile seizure, as all of the tests that they did showed nothing abnormal in her brain. They gave us a prescription for Diestat which we will need to give her if she goes into another seizure. They taught us the basics of what to do if she has another one, and let us know that she can’t swim or take a bath without an adult close by. At about 3 in the afternoon on Saturday, we finally got our discharge papers that allowed us to take her out of the hospital, and we were on our way.
I learned a few things over the past few days that are probably worth sharing.
1. My daughter Abby has got to be the best patient I have ever seen. Thru all of the pokes, prods, needle sticks, catheters, spinal taps, diodes, wires, blood, etc., she never cried a single time. She always did what the doctors and nurses asked her to do, and although she did say a few owieees, it was a far cry from where most people would be (i.e. – My other daughter was asked to stand on the scale at the doctor when she cut her lip, and she immediately began crying and saying she didn’t want to). Virtually every doctor and nurse commented at how great of a patient she was.
2. There really is power in prayer. While I consider myself very self sufficient and capable of handling myself in virtually any situation, I cannot express how helpless I felt when my small and precious child was not responding to anything I did. There really is something special about calling on a higher power to intervene and give you peace when something is out of your control. It is reassuring to know that He is in control, he listens to my concerns, and he provides me with a calming influence.
3. While I have always loved Abby unconditionally, I certainly don’t always appreciate her tormenting her siblings or parents as she is sometimes prone to do. When she was unconscious on that gurney, all I wanted for her to do was wake up and do something. I would have loved for her to pinch me, try to kick me, or hit me. Through this experience I look at some of her nuances as the spice that keeps life interesting. While my appreciation for this began to wear off as she was tormenting Kaiya this evening, I must say that it sure is good to have the old Abby back.
4. There are a lot of great people in the world. Experiences like this really have shown me the need to rely on others. The list goes on and on for those who have helped us thru this little scare, from the people who were “doing their job” (the paramedics, doctors, and nurses), to the many friends and family who offered unconditional assistance both physical and emotional. Friends of ours who happily watched Kaiya and provided dinner, to the River City Quilters Guild who donate hand made quilts with which Abby slept. I appreciate all of the great people around us, and I realize that life is made full by the people around us.
We are so thankful that everything appears okay at this point. While this has given us quite a scare, it has given us a pause to reflect and appreciate. We are so thankful for every member of our little family and for what they bring. We are thankful to our friends and extended family for the support thru all this. We are thankful to our Heavenly Father who makes life and the enjoyment thereof possible.
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