Miss Malia gave us a scare tonight. Zachary has had a lot of time off recently and he just went back full time today- and by full time I mean early, early in the morning until late tonight. So around 8, I was putting the kids down for bed and looking forward to getting some cleaning done. It was time to brush teeth and so I got Liam started- I brush his teeth and then let him do his own thing while I brush Malia's teeth. Well- Malia didn't want her teeth brushed. However- sometimes as a parent you have to make sure your kids do things that they don't want to do if it's good for them. Unfortunately, I can't explain this to Malia so she proceeded to get really, really angry. We've had an episode before where she's gotten really upset and held her breath and basically passed out but this time, she had a seizure. Being a seizure expert at this point (ha) I knew to time it. At 30 seconds, I just knew it would be over really soon. When it lasted over a minute, I was really surprised. At about the 45 second mark I called 911. I just knew it would be over by the time the phone call was over and I'd still have them evaluate her and probably end up going to the hospital but the seizure kept going and going. For six minutes. The worst part was, I had to go unlock the door. I was on the third floor so I asked the dispatcher if I should take her with me or leave her on the bathroom floor. I had to leave my seizing baby on the bathroom floor to open the door and that may have been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. We happened to be FaceTiming my parents at the time so they got to experience the whole thing. My mom said later that she was amazed at how quickly I got up and down the stairs- I was back before she thought I could have made it just down the stairs. Then I realized I wasn't sure where Liam was so after I got eyes on her and saw she was still breathing- still seizing but still breathing- I started calling out for Liam and right after that I heard my mom yelling that she had stopped. I picked her up and went downstairs as the EMTs got there. I met them at the door but ended up going back up to the middle floor. I held her while they took her vitals and then was thinking since it was a six minute long seizure I wanted her to be evaluated at the hospital and maybe speak to a neurologist so then I started thinking- while giving Malia's medical history to the EMT- I better figure out what to do with Liam. And maybe I should call my husband. Thankfully my dad had already got in touch with him so he knew what was going on so then we just had to discuss what we should do. He left from the Naval Academy and went straight to the hospital while I drove Liam in the van.
By the way- during all of this- Liam was standing in front of the TV watching Caillou oblivious to all of the lights outside and all of the people inside and all of Malia's screaming at the top of her lungs. It was quite impressive.
We beat the ambulance there and Zachary beat us there so the three of us waited for Malia to get there. Seeing her cute little face roll in was the highlight of my day. The nurse who was going to be working with her was getting the story from me and when she saw her come in she looked at her and then did a double take and couldn't believe how cute she is! We got her vitals again and then waited and waited. Finally, we saw a doctor out in the hallway- there were no rooms available. He was very nice and reassuring. He admitted they didn't have much of a pediatric neurology department so he suggested we see her pediatrician on Monday and get in touch with her neurologist. So there wasn't a great deal done at the hospital but I just had to go and have her checked out. He said she looked great and that she'll probably be President one day. We headed home and even though it was really late, had some sweet family time and just reflected on how blessed we are.
We had a feeling this day would come but it still took me by surprise. Today was supposed to be a super exciting, fun day. Zachary had an early day at school so he was leaving as I woke up but I got Malia up, changed and fed and then tackled Liam's morning routine. We left, on time, for our 45 minute drive to the pumpkin patch! I had memories of last year's pumpkin patch visit- we got cute pictures out of it and I had fun but Liam was a bit too young to enjoy it himself. This time, he was going to ride a cow train, whatever that is, and a pony! We had a ticket to pick out a pumpkin and to take a hay ride. We got to the pumpkin patch, Malia was in her carrier, Liam was in the stroller- lunch was on the picnic table waiting for us for when we finished the tour and then it happened. Something made me look down as we were walking towards the tour guide and Malia was having a seizure. Following Zachary's example from almost 2 years ago, I stayed very calm and told the people around me my baby was having a seizure. Liam's assistant teacher took Malia from me while I called 911 and while I was talking to the dispatcher, a parent who also happens to be a nurse started attending to her. The dispatcher was asking me questions that I would, in turn, ask the nurse. The ambulance got there pretty quickly and we loaded Malia and her car seat onto the ambulance and I drove Liam to Howard County General Hospital.
Funny side story. As we were waiting for the ambulance I attempted to call Zachary. His phone was doing random things all by itself and somehow answered itself while he was in class. The whole class could hear me saying, "Hello? Hello??" because I heard it pick up but Zachary wasn't talking. After I hung up, one of the wives of the guys in Zachary's class had texted a group of us wives that I was able to respond to without clumsily trying to assemble a group text of my own and said "Malia just had a seizure and Zachary's not answering his phone. Can someone get their husband to tell him to call me?" At this point, all the guys in Zachary's class started looking at him and pointing at their phones trying to motion to him to look at it assuming I had texted him telling him to call me but instead, he thought they were trying to tell him to turn his phone off, that they could hear sound coming out of a phone and it was his. After a few minutes he put together that maybe they were trying to say something else so he got his phone out and was able to email me and tell me he was on the way even with a very messed up phone.
We got to the hospital and they hadn't done anything yet besides hooking her up to a monitor. Zachary got there about 45 minutes later and soon after that, they decided to discharge us. We had told them we have the strongest possible family history of this and that she's going to have another seizure but they basically said if she has another seizure to bring her back in. As we walked to the car we decided that when, not if, she had her next seizure we would take her to Walter Reed since Liam is established with a neurologist there and both his and Malia's records would be easily accessible being that Walter Reed is a military hospital. As we were putting the kids in the car, Malia had a seizure. We hadn't even left the parking lot. So we stuck with the original plan. We went home and grabbed some things, dropped Liam off at a friend's house and headed to Bethesda. My parents left around that time and would pick Liam up from the friend's house and took care of him until we got home after what seemed to be an eternity.
This was Malia in the ER at Walter Reed- it took a while to get admitted but finally we were and she ended up having nine seizures total. As they did with Liam, they wanted to make sure the cause of the seizure wasn't something scary so they did lots of tests. Come to find out, Malia is an exceptionally hard blood draw so every time they would take blood, it took multiple tries. She blew three IVs as well and for the third placement, had to go under anesthesia. Because of all of this distress placed upon her, her heart rate went through the roof and they decided she needed to be moved to the PICU, convinced that whatever was causing her seizures was also causing the increase in her heart rate. The stress of multiple IVs and blood draws was too simple of an answer (although it ended up being the right answer).
In addition to the IVs and blood draws, she also had a CT scan and EEG and an EKG.
