This one here...

She sure knows how to get attention. The day before we were to leave for our vacation, I dropped all 3 girls off at my sister's, Jenny's. She was going to watch them while I went to get a hair-cut. So I dropped them off, and was sitting in the chair with a few highlighting foils in my hair when the reception lady up front came back to me and said, the police department was on the phone for me. I can't tell you how I felt at that moment. It immediately made my heart skip a beat. So many thoughts run through your mind. I took the phone and after a few explanations, I heard that Reese had had a brief seizure at Jenny's house. She was stable, but they were taking her by ambulance to the hospital just to check her out. I had my hairdresser rinse my hair out and I was out the door in less than 5 minutes and on my way to the hospital. Chad was working on his last day of driver's ed giving drive tests to the kids. I tried calling his phone over and over and couldn't get ahold of him. Finally when I was pulling in to the emergency room, he answered the phone and I was able to tell him to stop and get right over to the hospital. The drive to the hospital was scary to say the least. While I was driving there I was able to talk to Jenny briefly and then she put me on with one of the ambulance workers who was asking me questions about Reese. After talking to him for several minutes, he said to hold on and then the phone disconnected. I tried calling him back, tried calling Jenny back and couldn't get ahold of anyone. That made me even more scared like something was happening again. I'm not sure how I made it to the hospital, but I did. In fact I made it before Reese was there. Soon after I got there, my sister, Hilary met me there and not long after that Chad made it there. We were all there before Reese was.

At that point, I wasn't sure if Reese was alone or if Jenny was with her. I knew that Jenny had her 2 girls plus my other two at home. Thankfully Jenny's neighbor came out when she saw the ambulance and she stayed with the other girls until Matt could come home from work. So Jenny was able to hold Reese in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Soon after that they told us that Reese had arrived. It wasn't until we walked back to her room did we know that Jenny had come with her. Chad and I both took turns holding her. It helped just to see her and hold her, but we still had lots of questions. After us asking questions and the Dr.'s asking questions, the Dr. decided to have Reese under-go a CT scan. Chad and I were able to go with her. She didn't like it one bit. We had to try several times because we just couldn't hold her still enough to get a clear scan.

After the scan was over and we were still in the room, they told me I could pick her up. As I picked her up and was holding her, I could tell that something wasn't right. She wasn't looking at me, and was kind of staring off. She started pushing back on me, and her fist clenched up. I started yelling to the nurse and the CT guy that she wasn't right. They had me lay her on the bed and she began to seize again. By far the scariest thing I have ever watched was seeing Reese lay on that bed shaking. My hands are shaking now as I write this. This is the point where both Chad and I completely lost it. This (and the 1st one) lasted less than a minute and she stopped on her own (which are both great things).

So we went back to the ER room and the Dr. ordered an EEG stat and also had her blood drawn. He wanted to make sure to get this test done in case she would have another seizure. So they put in an iv and got to work connecting all those little cables to her head. Reese slept though the whole procedure (even getting the iv in) and the test. 2 hours total. They said it was really normal to be so sleepy after a seizure. It wears your body out. By this time, they admitted us and took us up to a room. The Dr.'s came in and told us that her CT scan and her EEG were all normal and looked great. They told us that we were probably going to be staying over night for observations. About this time, Reese woke up and was hungry. She had her first seizure before she had really eaten breakfast and then hadn't eaten lunch either and it was late afternoon. So they got her macaroni and cheese and she scarfed it down. We took her to the playroom and she was back to her old happy self. Squealing and toddling around playing with all the toys. After the Dr.'s came back in again, they told us not to get too comfortable. When she came back again, she told us that since everything came back normal and she was acting normal, that they were going to let us go. After a long talk with lots of questions from us, they reassured us that it was ok to go home and also to go on with our vacation plans for the next day.

Unfortunately, we may never know the exact reason it happened to Reese. We were given several different possibilities.

1. She had low blood sugar. (This is what we are really thinking and praying it was and the Dr.'s think so too.) She is a little peanut and several times the Dr.'s commented on how small she is. She is a great sleeper and sleeps at least 12 hours at night. They think that because she had her seizures before she really ate breakfast that her body went into shock. She doesn't have much fat "reserves" according to the Dr.'s. They told us to make sure she has a high protein snack before bed to tide her over until the morning.


2. The second possibility was something called Childhood Seizure Disorder. Something that children have and then grow out of.


3. The third possibility was we just don't/won't know... That's the hardest one, I think.

I wish we just knew for sure, but I know that I can't. The Dr.'s all seemed to think that it was the first possibility. There isn't any way to say if this was a one time thing, or if she will have another one.

As we were waiting for our discharge papers, my parents walked in her room. My mom said she just had to come down and check on Reese to hold her in her arms and make sure she was ok. So after driving for 2 hours, we were discharged about 30 minutes after they got there. After coming home, I obviously didn't sleep well that night. I went into her room several times to check on her. I talked to her pediatrician the next day and she confirmed what the hospital Dr.'s had said. All of her tests looked good/normal and that she didn't see any reason why we couldn't go on vacation. She told me that chances were good that she would not have another one. A normal person who has never had a seizure has a 1% chance of having one. Someone who has had a seizure the chance goes up to 3%, so the chance does increase a bit, but not by much. She still has a 97% chance that she will never have another one.

They did give us a prescription that we could give to Reese if she were to ever have another seizure. We could only give this to her if a seizure lasted longer than 5 minutes. After we got back from our vacation, we went to the pediatrician for a follow-up appointment. She agreed that everything looked good/normal and we didn't need to constantly worry. She answered lots of questions for us and helped us feel a bit more comfortable. She let us know that her seizures were both VERY short (the Dr.'s at the hospital kept talking about if she had a 15 - 30 minute seizure) and also it was a good sign that the seizures stopped on their own (she didn't get any drugs to stop them). She let us know that the seizures didn't hurt her any physically or mentally. When people are older, they don't even really realize they are having one. It makes them confused and tired. The only time it could hurt them mentally is if it was a long seizure and the air supply got cut off.

So for now, we have the prescription and we are praying and thanking God for our healthy little girl. It really makes you realize how blessed you are to have kids and healthy kids on top of that. We are very blessed.