The Story of Today 8/12/09

Elissa at 7:07pm

It was a normal morning of swim lessons and then just hanging out at the house. I put the kids down early for naps at 12:30pm because we had an afternoon of errands and Nana's 65th birthday party to prepare for and go to. I really didn't think Elissa would take a nap, but she said she was tired and went right down.

At 2pm I went in her room to wake her up so we could go p/u birthday cake and such. I called up to her (she has a bunk bed) and then started picking out her clothes. I heard her moan a couple of times and called to her again and then realized that the moaning sounded strange. I climbed up the ladder and saw her kind of jerking her hands. I went to her and tried to wake her up, but she was unresponsive. Her eyes were open but staring up and to the right and her hands were jerking and her legs were kind of stiff. Then I noticed that she was drooling and it kicked in that she was having a seizure. There was a lot of drool on her bed, so she had been having it for quite some time (I probably realized this a little later).

I fell down her ladder (giving myself a huge bruise on my arm) and called 911. They said to just leave her alone and the paramedics would be there soon. I called my mom, Darin (who rode the Sounder to work in Seattle), my neighbor Angie (for Zach who was still napping) and my MIL. Patty. I was freaking out on the inside, but trying to remain calm and in control on the outside. Of course praying all the while that she would be my normal little girl after this. I kept on running up to check on her and then out the door to see if the paramedics were here yet. I swear it took an hr for them to get there, but it was probably more like 15 minutes. She was still seizing when they got to her room.

They got her down from the loft and started working on her. Zach woke up, so I'm outside the room trying to keep him occupied. I called Angie to come get him because I knew I would be going to the hospital. They tried to get her to stop seizing, but were unsuccessful. They loaded her up to take her to Good Samaritan first to get her stabilized. My neighbor across the street, Gary, came over and said he would watch Zach until Angie came. I got in the ambulance and Angie and Patty pulled up at the same time. Whew, Zach is taken care of. I'm trying to keep it together - wondering how long she had been seizing before I found her and is she going to have brain damage and so thankful that I needed to wake her up today - Praise God! I later found out that they will most likely suffer brain damage if they are unattended for more then an hour. If I hadn't needed to wake her up, she would have been unattended for at least an hour. Again, thank you God!

We got to the emergency room with my mom close behind us. They were giving Elissa all sorts of meds and were unable to get her to stop seizing. They called Mary Bridge Children's Hospital to come and transfer her. After probably 30 minutes or so they finally thought they had them under control, but they had to put in a breathing tube in case they had to put her in a coma to stop the seizures. By this time my dad was there and Darin had arrived from his taxi ride. They took her in for a CT scan and everything was normal. They were talking about giving her a spinal to rule out meningitis and other infections, but would see what the Mary Bridge team said. She probably ended up seizing for almost 2 hours before it was stopped, but since she was under medical care and getting oxygen, there was no brain damage. Thank you Lord!

Elissa was completely drugged up and unresponsive. I would talk to her while they were poking and prodding and she would settle down somewhat. I kept on praying for strength to keep it together and for God to put anything on my mind that I needed to tell the doctors and that He would give them wisdom to help her out. The Mary Bridge team came in and got caught up, checked her out and loaded her into their ambulance just before 5pm (3hrs after I found her). She was stabilized at this point. I rode in the ambulance with her while Mom, Dad and Darin followed. Wow, I'm going to look at ambulances racing down the streets in a totally different way now.

We were then at the Mary Bridge NICU. Her vitals were good and the Dr didn't see anything yet wrong with her. She was breathing good on her own and they would take out the breathing tube as soon as she woke up a little. She wouldn't open her eyes, but she was fighting the tube and choking on it and trying to pull it out (they had her hands tied down). After 30mins or so she still wouldn't open her eyes, so they decided that she was acting "normal" otherwise so they took out the tube. She felt at rest then and went back to sleep.

They took blood and ran tests and everything has come back normal. Since at 9:30pm she was still not awake and the Dr couldn't assess her, he decided to do a spinal tap just to be extra sure that there was no infection. The initial results are that everything is normal. She will have an MRI and EEG in the morning. The Dr said that it is better to wait awhile to get better results. It seems like you would want that right a way, but for some reason you get more data the longer you wait....

Darin with Elissa at 7:07pm

Grandma with Elissa at 7:39pm

Dennis had showed up at Mary Bridge with everyone else (thank you Patty for staying home with Zach!) and Darin left with him to go get his truck and some stuff from the house. Just after he got back, 10:30pm or so Elissa finally woke up. Her eyes were open for the first time since I had put her to bed at 12:30pm and she was having a conversation with us. She answered questions and asked questions and smiled and was perfect! Thank you God!!

Elissa awake and talking for the first time at 10:34pm - What a pretty smile!

Elissa not wanting to sleep since she has been asleep since 12:30pm, so Daddy found her a cartoon on his laptop. 12:25am - exactly 12hrs later.

Now the Drs continue to rule things out and hopefully figure out what happened. We will most likely be here a couple of days.

Thank you so much for your prayers!! Please keep them coming.

So very grateful!
Heather