Big Attitudes, Breath-Holding, and Seizing

I could definitely classify the last 24 hours as the worst hours of my life! As some of you know or may not know, our little girl has episodes of breath-holding. When she gets very upset she will cry hard enough, forget how to breath in and pass out. Normally once she passes out, her little body kicks in and she starts breathing again. Well, the other day her brain had gone just too long without oxygen and blood and she began to seize. When she passed out this time, I immediately picked up the phone and called 9-1-1. Being in a town this small, we only have a volunteer ambulance. It felt like FOREVER for them to get here. In actuality it only took six minutes from the time of my call until their arrival; it felt like at the least 25 minutes! All the while my precious child is still seizing. She seized for a total of 7 minutes at our house and continued to seize on the ambulance on the way into town. We did not have a paramedic on the ambulance to administer the right type of drug to get her body to relax. The ambulance started to drive toward the nearest emergency room (30-35 miles away) while another ambulance with two paramedics heading our direction. Before we were able to meat up with them, her tired tired body just couldn't muster enough strength to simply breath in and out. They ended up having to breath for her for around four minutes. We stopped on the side of the interstate and the paramedics jumped on board and were able to administer a drug to finally help my child's tired body to relax. All they while I was just riding and whispering my love and my husband's love for her into her ear. Praying for a mighty God to help her body to relax and breath.

When we arrived to the hospital and I knew the doctors would be able to help her, I saw my sister waiting there for us and collapsed into her arms. That was the hardest few moments in my life. From there they were able to get x-rays of her lungs to check for fluid, aspirations, etc. She was sent for a CAT scan shortly thereafter. The doctors saw lots of air in her small belly and had to put a small tube into her belly to remove all the air. I was concerned to learn that the paramedic that administered the drug to her, actually gave her twice the amount of the sedative that should have been given for her weight. (That will come into play later in the story.) The doctor said that she would be fine, they would keep and eye on her breathing and she should just sleep an extra amount that night. She ended up waking just a couple of short hours later. Looking toward my sister when her camera phone said, "say, "Cheese!"" She also gave her "Botz" a half smile when she heard his voice. I carried her up to ICU where we spent the night and they were able to keep a sharp eye on her all night. She was hooked up to so many things. She had monitors for her heart, breathing, oxygen levels and she also had a board under her hand to keep her arm stable with the IV in it. They had to poke my poor child several times because her IV was just to small to take any blood from and they needed that line in to be able to administer more drugs if she began to seize again. She did very well all night. She has slept better nights, but with so many things hooked up to her and nurses coming in and out she slept well. I slept not a wink, however. Wanting to know every second if she was doing well, I found myself getting dizzy watching the monitor all night.

She awoke yesterday morning extremely hungry. She had one whole juice bottle and two cups of j.ello before we got word that she could have solid food. My mom ended up feeding her two pieces of french toast, two pieces of bacon, eggs and anything else she could get into her mouth! We expected to get a quick test done and head home. She had to be sedated for a brain wave test called an EEG. The gave her a total of 10 mg of Valium. For her weight 6 mg should be sufficient. (In reference to earlier the night before, she was given a total of 12 mg on the ambulance. I firmly believe that God directed the paramedics hands; had she only gotten 6mg she would have continued to seize even longer and they would have had to administer more once they realized that wouldn't work.) Once my mother finally got her to sleep (I couldn't bare to hold her long enough to get her to sleep) they began to stick the electrodes on her small little head. After about 45 minutes of sleeping she awoke. We ended up having to give her Kettamine. Horrible! I could not be in the room with her. She was tossing and turning, moaning and crying. Her big blue eyes would not focus on anything. Thankfully my parents had just returned from lunch and were able to sit with her as I gathered myself in the waiting room and talked with my aunt and cousin. After finally getting the test out of the way she started to come out of the funk that the drugs caused. When they saw that she was tolerating the drugs well, they told us that she could do the rest of her recovery at home.

We returned here and I was beginning to feel that maybe we should have stayed at the hospital. She was just unhappy. I fed her, bathed her, and tried to comfort her with lotion. I ended up skipping the lotion and giving her a bottle and putting her into bed. She fussed for only a couple of minutes and drifted right off to sleep. She just wanted to be left alone! The poor girl likes her time to herself and had been poked, prodded, strapped down, held up and stimulated way too much for the last 24 hours.

She woke this morning quite tired still. She would wake up for about and hour at a time to raid the pantry and refrigerator, smile for a while and go right back to sleep. She is a little weak still today, but that is understandable after all of the seizing and all she went through after that point. I was able to sleep most of the night last night only waking to my husband's phone call. I even was able to sneak in a nap while she slept today. She went to bed pretty early tonight and I expect that she'll sleep well into the morning hours.

The doctors are confident that it was the breath-holding that kicked her little body into the seizure. We are still waiting on the results of the EEG, but are certain that will come out normally. They have told us that when she does pass out from the breath-holding that we need to lay her down. If we do that we give her body the best chance of getting plenty of blood and oxygen to her deprived little brain. That will greatly decrease her risk of another seizure. Not to say that she will never have another, but the odds will be greatly decreased. Right now we just need to work on the attitude problem that leads to the breath-holding. Unfortunately she got the worst of both parents! We'll see how that goes!

For now, prayers for a perfect EEG and a renewed mind for our little girl and a lesser attitude! (Hey, never hurts to ask for miracles!) As for me, pray for not living a life of fear, but of confidence in my God and also for the tape of this horrible event to stop playing in my mind. And don't forget prayers of praise and thanksgiving that our little girl is now fine and resting peacefully!

Shortly after arriving to the hospital. Lovin' on her dolly.

Hanging out in the waiting room before the therapist came for the EEG.

Unfortunately, my hair didn't look any better than her hair!