May 21 - Graduation Night & 911

On May 21st Bailee graduated from Mountain Pew (sorry I can't help it). Unfortunately, we have no pictures because we never made it there.

We were all ready to head over there to sit in the rain and watch her walk with her class. The sitter showed up and I handed Lacy over to her. She started crying. I, being the wonderful mother than I am, ignored her and started to gather up my stuff to leave. I turned around and she was not breathing. She was crying so hard she never took a breath. I took her from Alicia and tried to blow in her face. Nothing. She started to turn blue. I yelled at Joe who was on the phone with Bailee's dad. He hung up mid-sentence, took Lacy from me, gave me his phone and told me to dial 911. I couldn't get the darn thing to work. I panicked, threw it on the counter and took Lacy back. He called 911. In the meantime Lacy had passed out, her eyes rolled back and she was having what appeared to be a seizure. I was completely freaking out and could not stand still. I started pacing back and forth with her.

I need to take a moment here to recognize Alicia's calmness in the whole matter. As soon as Joe told me to call 911 she gathered Talon & Hailey and took them upstairs to play. Had she not been there, we would have had two parents and two kids ALL freaking out. She is awesome!! If that was tryouts...she definitely made the babysitting team. :-)

So, I went outside with Lacy to wait for the paramedics. We were standing under the awning and I could hear the sirens in our neighborhood for what felt like hours. Can't they find our house? How long is this seizure going to last? Will there be long-term damage? What are they telling Joe on the phone? There were a million questions running through my mind. Finally her little body stopped jerking and went limp. Slowly the glossiness in her eyes faded and she could see me, and I could see her. I stopped shaking.

We went inside with the paramedics and they checked her vitals. They were surprised to find no fever. Apparently seizures are common with high fevers. When they started poking her she started to cry, but she was completely exhausted. When they finally let her have some juice she wouldn't even hold her own bottle. They strapped her car seat to a gurney and transported us to Banner Gateway, while Joe followed in our car.There they did a blood test, urine test, cat scan and x-ray. They came back a second time to get another urine sample, via catheter, because the lab spilled the first one. That sucked! Everything came back normal. Then they got ahold of our pediatrician, Dr. Madrid. He told them not to send us home until we knew what had happened. Since Banner Gateway does not have a pediatric unit anymore, they called another ambulance and transported us to Banner Desert. Lacy was asleep when they finally arrived to take us, and slept the whole way there.

They told us to plan on staying the night, because they would most likely not run any more tests until morning, so Joe went home for a change of clothes and some toothbrushes. We also called Joe's mom to relieve our sitter, who I'm sure was past ready to get out of there! Thanks Charlotte!!

It was about 1 am when we arrived, and they had a scary looking crib/cage in the room. Heck no! We need a bed! I put her in it for a few minutes and she was scared to death of that bed trap. Normally Lacy is a very good sleeper. She prefers to sleep alone in her crib, but this was not a normal night and I knew I would not get any sleep at all without her next to me (you know, making sure she was still breathing and all). After some begging, and lots of warnings from the staff, we finally got one. They were not letting her have anything to drink or eat, so we had to keep the liquids coming through an I.V. They had to re tape it a couple of times and she HATED that!! They finally left us alone around 3 am and we got a little bit of sleep. Look at how tired she is, poor baby.Joe had an awesome chair, so I gave him some "bed" time too the next day. :-)They came back at 6 am. The nurse told us that they would be doing a EEG and a MRI. She told us that the MRI room was all booked up that day and that we might need to stay another night to get in. Unacceptable. They said they would work on it.

A Neurologist game in and talked to us while we were waiting. He said that he didn't think she had a seizure, but a breath holding episode. Huh? He brought us some literature about it and said we should go ahead with the tests, but he didn't think they would show anything abnormal. You can read about it HERE.

We had to try to keep Lacy awake so that she would sleep for the EEG. The nurse asked when her normal nap time is. Really? She only slept three hours last night. Her nap time could be now if you would leave us alone. She insisted I pick a time. I said 11. Immediately I thought it was a bad choice. How were we going to keep her awake, not eating and only having clear fluids until 11? It was hard. I told them a couple of times that she was ready, but the technician still didn't come until 11. That test was weird, but she was an angel. They hooked a million little electrons on her head, wrapped it in gauze, then waited for her to fall asleep. It only took about 30 seconds. After about a half hour she woke her back up with a strobe light. Lacy thought it was hilarious and started laughing at it. So cute!!

Luckily, the staff agreed to stay later for us and we were scheduled for an MRI at 4:00 (or was it 5?). We finally got in around 6:30. They had to put Lacy "under" for the MRI. That was scary for me, but they said she did a great job.

When she came out of the anaesthesia they let her have a drink and some food. It was really funny to watch her try to eat her bread. She kept smacking it on her cheek and then rubbing it over to get it in her mouth. I wish we would have gotten some video of that!After all the tests came back normal we left with what the neurologist said. It was not a seizure, it was a breath holding episode, and she would probably do it again, but there is no long-term damage. We were told to time her "seizure like activity" and as long as it is less than 5 minutes we do not have to do anything at all. Except FREAK OUT!!