Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The day my life changed forever...


With all the wonder and excitement we packed and got up at the buttcrack of dawn to leave for our much anticipated trip to our family's farm. The kids were beyond thrilled to finally be leaving as we had missed the last year due to mommy's health so the fact that we were getting to leave on a Thursday morning and stay till Monday was perfect to them. Missing 2 whole days of school was fabulous. They bragged for weeks to their friends about how they were going to be riding quads and horses while everyone else would be sitting at a desk. Hubby and I had 3 very excited children.

Off we went. A quick stop for gas, coffee filled up and hit the freeway with the kids all snuggled up in their seats. Jordan sprawls in the back with his sleeping bag over him and the girls strapped into their gigantic britax husky carseats belted in with their blankets.

Forty-five minutes into our journey Hubby and I are chatting away and I can hear some kind of gurgling in the background. 3 kids behind us we expect them to make strange noises to eachother. This consistant gurgling sound was still going on so I looked back...

My beautiful amazing Courtney's eyes were rolled back in her head, she had bubbly foam coming out of her mouth and her hands were curled up so tightly under her chin. She was jerking around wildly and it was not stopping. She was not responding to anything. Dean kept asking me what do I do, what do I do, and I told him to pull off at the exit and pull into the hospital. Thankfully we were just before a freeway exit to a very small town hospital. Just before we got to the hospital she came out of it. I calmly explained to Courtney that she had had a seizure and we were taking her to see a doctor. At Hubby and my best guess it seemed to have lasted about a minute and a half. A grand mal seizure is not something that any parent should have to see their child endure.

The doctor did her vitals and she seemed fine. We left the hospital and imediately phoned our family doctor. He told us to take her straight to our home town hospital and he would have a pediatrician meet us there. Once we arrived we saw the ER medical doc and he said that he suspects that Courtney's previous infections when she was younger such as the blood infection when she was 3 years could have caused some scar tissue in her brain and this could very well be the issue. We then saw the pediatrican and he sent her straight in for a CAT scan. It came back normal and Hubby and I were sooooo relieved. While in the hospital though she began having these tingly sensations that happen all over her body and are followed by feeling nausious for a bit. This happened once in the hospital.

The entire time throughout all of this drama Courtney was concerned about her trip to the farm (it's an 8 hour drive). Over and over again she asked the doctors if she could still go on the trip. We kept telling her to wait and see what the doctors had to say. They said take her so we went. She was fine. She had one tingly episode on the way home and then a dozen more once we arrived home.

An EEG was performed and it came back normal. The why did it happen has us devestated.

The past year Courtney has gone downhill in school from the smartest kid in the class to the scatterbrain that cannot remember, been having horrible rage attacks where she cannot stop herself and doesn't care who it happens in front of and when her brother and her fight and he holds her to prevent being attacked by her she gets this absent look in her eyes for a couple of seconds followed by melting into a puddle of tears and claims she feels like puking.

All of these factors put together have me most worried. We were booked for another CAT scan with contrast dye and the radiologist told us when we arrived that the previous test asks for an MRI and NOT a CT with contrast. We were confused and went to talk to the pediatrician that we saw at the hospital. He has put Courtney on an anti-anxiety med (prozac 10ml) and so far no tingly feelings again so they might have been anxiety attacks. It still doesn't help us to know why she had the siezure or what it means when she fights with her brother and her eyes dialate and she changes so quickly. This pediatrician seems to just want to wait and see if it happens again and not do the MRI.

I don't know what to think. I am happy that she is going back to school (first day back yesterday) and is getting back to normal. She isn't scared anymore and that's so important to us.

After seeing that I don't think I'll ever be the same again. I won't ever look at Courtney the same again. My beautiful amazing daughter...

Why?

1 comment:

Stephanie Rese (St-Pierre) said...

Laurie, just new to your blog and wanted to say, from one mother to another - while our situations are different, watching your child change and not knowing how to help them is brutal. I totally know how you feel, and I hope you get some answers. Your children are beautiful.