The Worst Week of Our Lives

Disclaimer- Long and Very Detailed

Monday- I am driving to UPS at 7 am to unlock the Jeep because Kevin accidentally locked the keys in the car. At the exit ramp I look in the rear view mirror and notice that Maddy is puking. Kevin decides to go home with her. She pukes one more time on the ride home. She acts cuddly and tired but other than that is okay. I get home and she immediately pukes on me. She will then puke 3 more times before bed. We think it is just a 24 hour flu bug so I get a sub. She sleeps through the night.

Tuesday- Wake up at 7am. Try to give her milk and she pukes twice. By this time my house is a mess with laundry threatening to take over and it smells funny. Take Kevin to school at 9. Maddy falls asleep on the ride home and sleeps until 11. When she wakes up we go to the kitchen and start cleaning up. All of a sudden I hear a thump and notice that Maddy has slumped over, her eyes have rolled back in her head, her mouth is drooping to one side and her whole body is shaking. And it lasts for about 30- 45 seconds. I start screaming and luckily my phone was right there so I call 911. I am hysterical but manage to give them our address. They transfer me to a paramedic operator who gives me instructions on how to act. I get her on the floor, roll her to the side and speak in calming tones to her. About 5 minutes later, 2 police cars, a fire truck and an ambulance are at my door. By this time her seizure had stopped but she was really out of it and tired. They all thought it might have been a fever induced seizure but her temperature was 98. Maddy and I then got to take our first ever ride in an ambulance while trying to get a hold of Kevin.

Tuesday Afternoon- Kevin is in class and sees the text message "911- Call Me!" and is able to get a friend to leave class and drive him to the hospital. At the hospital we are able to get Maddy calmed down and she quickly falls asleep but not for long. They decide that they want to do a CT scan and take her blood and urine to test. Kevin holds her perfectly still during the CT scan and that is an amazing accomplishment. Then Kevin leaves to go get our car which is still at home. While he is gone they decide to put in an IV and take her blood. This is when her 2nd seizure occurs. Luckily, we were in the hospital and there were like 6 people in that room within seconds. Unlucky, I heard one of the nurses say "Is she breathing". Once again I was a basket case. During this one they gave her a shot of Valium to calm her down and she was pretty much drunk for the rest of the night. And also her temperature was 98. After this one they decided to admit her for further testing. She slept for like the next 3 1/2 hours but when she woke up at around 6, she was starving. She was in my lap and was eating at the speed of light when she had her 3rd seizure. This one really scared me because her mouth was full and I did not want her to choke. Right after this one we are taken upstairs for the night.

Wednesday- She slept from about 6-1am but then she was incredibly fussy and would not stop screaming. This is not my baby at all which concerned us. That morning though it seemed like she was doing better. She had started some seizure medication and all the tests had come back normal. We were hoping to come home. Then she started getting really fussy and we could not get her to calm down. So we tried to get her to eat and we had seizure #4 at about 9:30. Lets just say that I am never feeding my child graham crackers again! Dale and Linna, Kevin's parents, got there shortly afterwards to help us deal with the day which was a nice break. The doctors decided to do an EEG to see how her brain was doing (which came back normal). Maddy hated when all the electrodes were being out on her head but then quickly fell asleep. It was when the electrodes were being taken off that she started crying hysterically. I was holding her when she had seizure #5. At this point they decided to change out her medicine and keep us there one more day. When she was sound asleep I got to go home for an hour and finally take a shower. While I was gone I missed our friends Rachael and Caleb visiting though. We made it through the rest of the night without any more seizures and were hoping to go home Thursday.

Thursday- Maddy slept better but started getting a fever in the middle of the night. By morning she was up to 101. Then she threw up all over her and me and right in front of the doctor. We had to stay one more day. But by the end of the day she was acting much more like herself. Still a little wobbly and drunk but she was walking again and was happy. We also had some more visitors. Both her new babysitter and her old babysitter came at the same time to check on her. It was nice to see people from the outside world.

Friday- Fever is gone, no more seizures, no more throwing up. We get to go home! (But at this point I had not left our hospital wing in over 36 hours and was really stir crazy).

She seems to be doing well and is still tired and groggy but they said that could last a couple days to a week. The doctors are not sure what caused the seizures but they think and hope that it was just a virus. She will be on anti-seizure medication for about 3 months and then they will reexamine her and we will know for sure. It sucks to have a sick baby and it is definitely something we never want to do again but thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!