Baby's first...

I'm writing this blog post 11 months later, so we're kind of going to go back in time today.  Let's wind it back to May 22, 2014, boys....

Layla's "Bee School" graduation (the preschool coop we'd done with friends) at the Wanamakers.  Ezra had been teething and running just a touch febrile so I left him in his carseat during the festivities so that he would be less likely to spread any possible germs to the others.  He sat contentedly watching the preschoolers run around and sing their songs and have their snacks.  I was trying to get some food into my persnickety pregnant belly and I watched him curiously.  He seemed fixated on something but I couldn't tell what.  My spider-senses were tingling but I just didn't know what that was about.  I ate and chatted some more until I couldn't handle the tingling any more.  I asked my other mom-friends, "Does something seem weird about Ezra?"  Nobody seemed to notice anything so the conversation drifted away quickly but I kept observing.  He seemed to be fixated with his eyes up and to his left, and he almost seemed to be tremoring.  Was I imagining that?  I picked him up and held him.  He didn't change his gaze.  His hand was definitely shaking and tightened into a fist.  I called his name, touched his face.  No response.  My friends were now convinced that something was wrong, and I was too.  Kelcy ran to get her thermometer and his fever read 101 or something like that-- feverish but not crazy high.  My friends told me "don't worry, febrile seizures can be perfectly normal, but you should take him to see the pediatrician".

 I left Layla there with all the friends and I put my baby into his carseat and into the car.  I could hardly stand putting him down and then not even being able to see his face.  As I drove I could hear his breathing sounded strange.  I talked to him, told him to relax and not worry, mommy's still here.  I called Spencer and told him that I was rushing to the pediatrician and that this is not too unusual, but to keep his phone close until everything is resolved.  I got to the pediatrician and put my boy back into my arms.  I held him close although he didn't seem to melt into me the way he should.  Still no looking.  Stifled breathing.  Tremors, tightened fist.  I got to the front desk and tried not to break into tears as I blurted out, "I think my baby is having a seizure!"  The woman there told me I was very lucky because it was lunch break so nobody was with any patients and Dr. Hill would be able to see him immediately.

We rushed back to the exam room and Dr Hill (whom we love) came it quickly but calmly.  She evaluated him and assured me it was a seizure and that it's really not unusual.  She tested his blood oxygen level, which was way below the limit of normal.  His temperature had gone up, too.  In an instant he had a little, teeny, tiny oxygen mask on, which he took no notice of, and was given ibuprofen.  We waited and watched and discussed possible causes, and of course the fever was the most likely cause.  But as we watched, he continued.  That little fist stayed taut, the tremors and labored breathing continued, and the gaze never broke.  The problem was that febrile seizures are supposed to stop on their own, but, by the best of my calculations, we were about 30 minutes in and still going strong.  The assistants were sent to scour the clinic for anti-seizure meds, which they had once had on hand.  Nothing was found and so the paramedics were called.

And that is how Baby had his first ambulance ride.  I was so sick and so weak, but they carefully lifted us both in and took my bag and things for me.  They let me hold him in my arms the whole way and the paramedics were all calm and reassuring.  They had me hold his oxygen mask on while they gave him a shot with the medicine that is for seizures.  It didn't take long at all for his fist to relax, his eyes to close, and his breathing to return to a normal rhythm.  By the time we got to the hospital he was in a deep sleep but clearly not seizing anymore. 

Into the ER we went.  They put me into a wheelchair and let me continue to hold him.  In the ER he was hooked up to monitors and blood was drawn.  My phone battery was about to die, of course.  But I was able to keep Spencer updated as things happened.  It was a looong afternoon of tests and waiting for results and feeling completely depleted and weak and nauseous.  He slept deeply for most of it, although they kept waking him for tests and it was heart-breaking every time.   And then I'd have to try to get him to calm down in my depleted state in a brightly lit, sterile room with almost no comfortable surfaces, with tubes and needles in our way.  He was taken away for an MRI, which I couldn't attend bc of my pregnancy.  I waited helplessly outside the door, wondering if he knew I wasn't there.

baby's first MRI

After all results came back normal the attending physician said that the next step was to send him to the Children's Hospital, but that she really didn't want to do that since she knew how hard it would be on our family and that she didn't think it was truly necessary.  So instead they checked us in right where we were, so up we went to the pediatrics floor. 

baby's first EKG

The next 5 days were constant vitals-checks and IVs and frustrations.  We were blessed with mostly really wonderful nurses.  Even the ones that made me mad were still good and caring, they were just completely unconcerned that waking him up every 2 hours at night meant that I had to spend the next hour and a half getting him back to sleep, which was killing me and was surely not helping him to improve.  I feel pretty certain that, had they let him sleep it off, he would have gotten over the fever in half the time.  He didn't maintain a healthy temperature until Saturday night.  The results showed urinary, ear, and sinus infections ("although babies don't actually have sinuses", we were told.  Um, get your story straight, folks!)

happy to be playing but still attached to the IV stand...

  So Sunday he was perfectly fine and energetic and really sick and tired of being in the same small room with tubes in his arm tying him down.  We were so anxious to be sent home but they kept us one extra day just to milk us for all we had be safe.

Monday afternoon, Memorial Day, Ezra was finally discharged.  The nurse that I had loved the most and who had really made me feel heard and validated in my concerns and frustrations was there with me to help me get packed up and get on my way.  Spencer was on the lake with the girls and our friends, our annual Memorial Day tradition.  It was nice to have a quiet home to come back to and get settled.  It was really just nice to be home.  SO nice.

Discharged and it feels so good!

It's been almost a year and although he's had several fevers since, he has not had another seizure so far.  As you might imagine, he gets watched like a hawk if he even looks a little warm.  We are told by the doctors to medicate him as soon as a fever shows, even if it's a low-grade.  It's the breathing and lack of response to how much oxygen he was getting that makes me really nervous.  What if he does that in his crib? I can't bare the think about it, and I can't bare to put him in his crib if he's feverish.

You never see just how blessed and cared for and capable you are until something like this happens.  I'm so grateful that it was more of a pain in the rear and less of a life-altering event.  I'm so grateful for the glance into the world of hospitals and emergencies-- a little taste of empathy and understanding for families who's lives are changed during stays such as that.  And of course every person in town stepped up to love and serve our family.  Some men from our church that we didn't even know stopped by to check on us and brought my van from the Pediatrician's to the hospital for us.  Dinners and childcare and mowing the lawn.  Spencer's Aunt Dodie, who was in town visiting her own grandson came and spent a few hours at the hospital holding and soothing Ezra, so that I could rest and then go out to dinner for Tara's birthday surprise that I had planned.  We were so well-cared for! 

And of course, I'm grateful that the Lord blessed me physically to be able to do what I was supposed to do, and emotionally and spiritually to feel the peace I needed.  And to have an amazing husband who held it all together on the home front so that I could put my whole everything into worrying about supporting Ezra.

And that that's over with.  Sheesh.