Scariest day of my life....

We've dealt with hospitalizations before. Layla was in the hospital twice, once at 4 months and once at 5 months, for 5 days each time. We've been there, done that. We know the bloodwork deal, the nurses and Dr's in and out. Since Layla's issues were respiratory related, we had to stay in one of those tents that go over the bed. We thought we were experienced at hospitalizations. We weren't.

Last Wednesday, April 7, 2010 started off as a great day. The girls were in great moods, Layla was playing with Lexi, Lexi was laughing, everything was great. We watched "The Princess and the Frog" twice.. and "Nemo" twice. Great day.

Lexi takes a good nap from around 3:30-5:30.. and gets up to eat. Ryan thought she was still tired, so he laid her back down, but she was fussy. I told him to bring her in the living room to me. He brought her in, she smiled and talked for a minute. Lexi is a very active baby anyway. She is always moving, always kicking or throwing her hands up.

It was about 10 til 6 when she began throwing her head back, arching her back, and turning her head to the side. I said outloud "what is she doing?" Ryan just kind of stared at her and I was saying "Lexi! Lexi!" trying to get her to look at me, but she wouldn't. She wouldn't do anything. I immediately said "there's something wrong with her."

We live next door to his parents. He said, I'm just going to take her over real quick to see what they think. I agreed and started getting Layla dressed because I wanted to be with her. I had barely gotten pants on Layla when Ryan came back through the door and said "we need to take her to the hospital."

I quickly got dressed and off we went. As soon as we got to the ER, they took us back and started. It was, in fact, a seizure. Seizure. I have never experienced anything like a seizure. All of the kids in the family and not one of them had ever done anything like this.

In the ER, they did a spinal tap, a ct scan of her head, and blood-work. She also had an IV and they gave her anti-seizure medication. They came and said they were going to move her upstairs, then shortly after that said they were going to transfer her to a hospital about 45 minutes away that has a pediatric intensive care unit.

The transport team from the other hospital came via ambulance to the hospital where we were and began assessing her also. We told them our story and Lexi spit up. She had spit up the entire bottle, but had continued spitting up small amounts while in the ER. It was then that she started spitting up brown liquid. The nurse from the transport team put an NG tube down her nose and into her stomach and started withdrawing air, until he also removed more brown liquid. It was later we found out this was blood and she had it intermittently suctioned out through the NG tube.

We arrived at the 2nd hospital around 11:30pm and since it was a 'teaching' hospital, they only had residents and no actual Drs. I was VERY unhappy with the first Dr. He wanted to do nothing and wait until the following morning for the Dr to come in. At this point, Lexi is still unresponsive, but not seizing, and moaning/whining. She is moving because she is so uncomfortable and there is nothing I can do. I tried holding her, I tried talking to her, I tried everything.. and nothing helped.

I've never been in a situation where I couldn't comfort my child.

They did a few things that night after we got the pediatric intensive care unit staff involved and gave her something at 5:30am to help her rest. At that point, she'd been up for 12 hours with no nap, no rest, nothing. She got to sleep for about 2 hours until they came in to do more tests. Blood-work, a catheter, and x-rays. I was losing my mind.

They wanted to change her bed and one of the nurses picked her up, and it looked like Lexi was having another seizure.

She was still so restless, just kicking and moving her arms, and moaning/whining. Still nothing I did helped her.

Her Dr came in and that's when things started moving. I had told my husband during the middle of the night that I was not pleased with this hospital. I did not have faith in them at that moment, but I was going to hold out until the morning when the Dr was supposed to come in. If I still wasn't happy, I was going to have her moved to cincinnati children's.

Thankfully, her Dr was excellent and we didn't have to request another transfer. Surgery was consulted because of the bleeding in her stomach and not having a bowel movement. We were thinking bowel obstruction. She was to have an MRI, under the consult of the pediatric neurologist and a ct scan of her stomach. For the MRI, she would have to be under anesthesia.

During the MRI, her levels began to jump and her O2 stats were falling.. she had to be intibated. My baby had to have a tube down her throat to help her breathe.

The radiologist came out to say that they were transferring her to the pediatric intensive care unit and not taking out her breathing tube until they were sure she didn't need surgery. We were allowed to walk with her up to the doors, but they would take her back alone and get her set up.. then they would tell us when we could go back to see her.

Thankfully, no obstruction, no surgery, so they extibated her. I was in the room for that, it had to be the scariest part. The nurse got everything ready in the event that she wouldn't begin breathing on her own. I sat there, silent, staring at my sweet baby just laying on the hospital crib bed.

The next morning, she was doing great. She was allowed to begin eating and she was keeping food down. She had a dirty diaper and I had never been so excited for that in my life. They moved her back to the general peds floor, surgery signed off, and her Dr said that it may've been something viral that caused her seizure, it might have been the very low grade temperature, or the pain from her stomach.

Our plan for Friday was just to rest and be observed, but she did really well. Saturday morning, all test results were in, all test results were fine, and we were able to go home! Lexi and I slept most of the evening on Saturday. Sunday she was back to herself.

Tomorrow morning we see the pediatric neurologist. She is on anti-seizure meds now, but hopefully she won't have to be forever.