What a morning we've had! I guess it's health issues that drives me out to blog, since I appear to have been negligent in posting since I had my surgery. So...first things first. I've recovered from my thyroid surgery and don't have cancer. We have finally moved to our house in Ammon, ID and the kids got settled right into school. Life has treated us well.
Well...until this past week any way. We had a bad 24 hour bug that just wiped us out. It was horrible having virtually everybody ill last Monday. Matthew and Heather came down with it first, which was a good thing because Joe and I both were ill Monday...along with Jeremiah, Jacob, Sam and Hope.
Sam had been feeling "off" for a few days, running mild fevers here and there. He got the crud, but seemed to bounce back quickly and even went back to school on Wednesday. Then yesterday he got another fever...about 101. He went to bed on his own last night before he even ate. This morning I felt his head and was pleased to see that the fever had gone down. Jeremiah took his temperature and told me it was 99.3. Not completely broke...but getting there. So Sam goes to sit and eat breakfast with his brothers and I head to my office. 'tis the season for hiding in my office doing taxes, you know.
Suddenly I hear this big thud on the kitchen floor. I'm thinking, "Great! Hope has finally tipped herself over backwards in the chair." But...no crying. NOT good. So I come out asking if it was Hope, and was told that it was Sam. I see Samuel laying on the floor twitching and convulsing in a seizure. I pick him up and holler for Joe to help...we need to get Samuel to the hospital. Both of us are trying to figure out what to do, panicking when I finally tell him to call 911. By this time I'm starting to have a melt-down because I'm having flash backs to Heather when she was three-years-old having the same thing and the ER doctors not believing us...until the next day when she had another right there in the emergency room. Joe's talking to the 911 operator and answering questions, and Heather had come racing out of her room and took Sam from me. She's studying to be an EMT right now in school, so she managed to be the cool head in everything. I guess it's a good thing she's the one going into a medical field and I stuck with numbers. We decide that we don't need an ambulance by this point because Samuel seemed to be coming out of his seizure. We hadn't ruled out the hospital though. That just seemed the place to go when somebody is ill enough to have a seizure. I just keep thinking "Not again!"
Well, my uncle Jim is an RN and only lives blocks from my house. I had Joe call him to help administer a priesthood blessing to Samuel. Luckily Jim was still home although he was preparing to drive to Utah to help my cousin whose house flooded in Bountiful. (At least I think that's where he lives...) Anyway, Jim came over and asked some questions, had Samuel follow his finger with his eyes, checked the dilation of the pupils and his skin to check for dehydration. He thought Sam would be okay and told me just to take him to the pediatrician rather than the ER. Although he did reassure me that at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center (EIRMC) they tended to believe the mom's when something like this happens...unlike Heather's situation 15 years ago when that ER didn't believe us. He and Joe then gave Sam a blessing and I called the pediatrician.
Samuel is feeling much better now, although he's resting today. I think he likes the idea of lazing around drinking PowerAide and sucking on popcicles. The pediatrician has ordered an EEG which will likely happen next week. He's also suggested that we speak with a pediatric neurologist to see if there may be something neurological that caused the seizure and may be the cause of his speech and learning disabilities. We may end up having an MRI done for that as well. This is the first doctor to vocalize that Samuel's head is a bit large for his body...something I'd known but thought he'd grow into it. You know...like a puppy grows into their feet.
Sam was poked for some blood work. There was no sign of bacterial infection, though, which relieved my worry about Sam needing to go through a spinal tap like Heather had to endure all those years ago. I just didn't want to go through all that again. It was bad enough when Heather endured that, but it was absolutely terrible when my son, Jacob, had to go through a spinal tap at one month old. (He had had a viral meningitis.)
So now we're in a hurry up and wait mode...again. Right now we're just praying for a calm weekend without a repeat of Heather's "5-6 seizures in 24 hours" with Sam. You know...come to think of it, Heather's seizures occurred in January, too. The month maybe? Hmmm....
