Tomorrow...Feb. 25th, my birthday, marks the four year anniversary of the day we almost lost our little girl and the day my faith in God was reaffirmed.
Four years ago my daughter, now six, came down with rotavirus. She was very sick. We had her to the emergency room on a Wednesday and were sent home saying there was nothing they could do for her. Then when not getting any better, brought her back to the doctor on Friday. She wasn't making tears, and wasn't producing wet diapers. I was so concerned, but told by the pediatrician to bring her to the Pediatric wing at the hospital at 8pm that night to be admitted. Well, we never made it that far...
I remember the day as if it were yesterday...I remember everything. What I was wearing, what my daughter was wearing, even what video was playing in the van. I had just left the doctors office and pulled in to the gas station for gas. I asked the attendant to "fill it, please" then looked over my shoulder to check on my daughter. I watched as her eyes rolled right back into her head to only see the whites of her eyes, mouth open, and stop breathing. I turned around to shake her, wake her up, etc... I flew out of the van and started screaming to call 911. I ran around to her side of the van, now trying to wake her, and after what must have been a minute but seemed like eternity, started screaming "my baby, my baby...help me, someone help me!!" The attendant was on the phone with 911 and then two women appeared. One moved me aside, the other climbed through the other side of the van and was on her phone. They were sisters, and they were EMT's. I heard one say "there is a pulse, but she's not breathing...she's having a seizure." They started to unzip her snowsuit. It was a whirlwind...I was saying, "no, she doesn't have seizures, she's never had a seizure!" We were all calling her name, then her eyes rolled back to normal, she started to cry, and I was just so relieved. After a few minutes, she went into a "catatonic" state...during a seizure the brain is overworked so much it is exhausted, so seizure sufferers many times fall into a deep sleep. We now had many bystanders around and something made me look up onto the street at the cars passing by...there was my mother. Two towns away from her home, passing by at that very moment. I yelled for my mother, then someone (still don't know who it was) asked her cell phone number, called her and told her what was happening, and she turned around. (Note how these two women just appeared, EMT's happened to be at that very gas station at that very time and came to my calls, and my mother happened to be driving by at that very moment I looked away from what was going on??!!) The MICU unit arrived, loaded her and I in the back, when she suffered another seizure. The head woman on the "rig" asked me to go up front... I begged to stay back with her, but she then said my daughter was very sick and she needed me to go up front. Her seizure lasted, again, longer than a minute and again, she did not breathe through it. When we arrived at the hospital she suffered more seizures, each longer than the one prior, and each time following the "coma-like" state took longer for her to come out of. By that time my husband (who was at practice over an hour away) was there, as was my family and my in-laws. The emergency room physician explained that they could no longer help her there, that she needed a trauma center with a key neurology staff. She would need to be transferred to a children's neurology and epilepsy center about an hour away. Another doctor came in to speak with us and sat down (as a daughter of a microbiologist and working through college in the ER I knew that if the doctor sits down with the family it's either to joke with them and say..."well kid, we're kickin' you out...you can go home" ...and I knew they weren't going to say that...so it wasn't good.) The doctor explained that the more seizures the brain suffers the more potential for irreversible damage, and the fact that she wasn't breathing through these seizures, that they were all happening within hours of each other, her brain wasn't getting any reprieve from the trauma, and so she said there was a good possibility that she would have severe brain damage...which could even mean not coming out of the "coma-like" state she was currently in, or coming out in a "vegetative" state. She then went on to ask..." You both are teachers...right? Special education teacher?"...I then lost her after that. I cannot remember her exact words, but she was implying that we would know what to do if this were to happen to our child...
Did I just hear her correctly...this morning, our little girl was fine. Sick, but fine. This is not happening, I thought. We had been there for hours, I was a wreck, and during all of this I had to go to the bathroom so badly, but I didn't want to leave her. Not even for the thirty seconds it would take for me to go...I went through CT scan, MRI, all the testing with her, and I wouldn't leave. But, short of grabbing a bedpan I had to go or I was going to wet my pants. So, while she was sleeping, I ran across the hall. I will remember the next two minutes for the rest of my life. I closed the door (it was a single bathroom), locked it, and just lost it. I literally fell to my knees, just sobbing. As I write this, or even whenever I think of this moment, I become overwhelmed with emotion... Today was my birthday...I did not want to lose my daughter. I remember each word that I said, for some reason. "Oh, dear God, please, please take care of my baby. I cannot see her go through this anymore. She cannot go through this anymore. If it is Your will to let us keep her, we can help her, we will take care of her, no matter what. Of course I want her here with me... but if you need her...if it is Your will to take her today, then that is Your plan, You know what is best for her, and I am so grateful to have had her." (I waited so long between saying the last two phrases...because I was so scared to say that...I can't explain it) I remembering finishing with, "But please, wait until I get back there with her." Then I stopped sobbing, finally went to the bathroom, washed up, looked in the mirror, threw some water on my face, tried to put on a brave face, and walked back to her room. I picked her up again, and laid on the bed with her in my arms.
From that moment on, she never once, not once in four years, had another seizure and is the bubbliest, brightest, most creative, most imaginative, most beautiful little six year old I know. We ended up at the epilepsy center for children, enduring all of the tests they wanted to perform... each scan, EEG, 48hr. testing, etc, were all negative. (BTW...any other parents of seizure children know that these tests are awful!! Sleep deprivation, waking every 10mins to a flashing light, trying to bring on as many seizures as possible! It was necessary, but it was awful.) With each negative result they wanted to run a different test. Weeks turned into months and we had had enough. We accepted the normal results and decided "enough-is-enough" and to stop the testing there. But, like I said, never another seizure. I had to accept I was not in control that day, nor were the doctors. I laid it at His feet and He took care of the rest.
Ironically, tonight, on the eve of that very night, I sit here praying, laying it at His feet with child number two...my three year old with rotavirus. We are hoping to avoid hospitalization at this point, but it's not looking too promising. He just fell asleep, so I am taking some much needed reprieve. I'm hoping to make it through the night, checking for wet diapers and tears, but so far only changing terribly dirty ones...not a good sign. If we make it, we'll go to the office at 9am tomorrow (or I guess today, actually) to see what they think. I sit here terrified, reliving this all over again, and praying for a quiet heart, knowing He has him (my son) in His hands. I stand in faith today knowing that with Him there is nothing we cannot overcome.
For an update on tonights events, go here.
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