Tuesday, February 16, 2010


First off let me say thank you to all of you that prayed for Mae Mae. It's an amazing feeling to know that you have friends praying for you! I think for me the highlight of Twitter or Facebook would be the ability to start an instant prayer chain. Thank God for that!

Here's what happened last night:

Josiah, Mae and I were in the office playing a very fun version of Toy Story mania online. They were both in one chair and it ended up behind my chair. Mae apparently stood up, grabbed  onto my chair, and then fell face first onto our laminate floor. I was right there, scooped her up, gave her some loves and took her down the hallway to see Daddy for some Daddy comfort. While standing in the hallway she started convulsing/seizing. Her eyes were glared over, her arms shot straight out and she reared back. Her one leg that wasn't against my body stood straight out. I held her away from from and shouted her name. She didn't respond to anything. I think at the most it lasted 10 seconds. It felt like forever. I've never felt anything like that in my short stint as a Mom. Cameron asked if she was maybe just throwing a fit and wanted down. Nope. I know my kids and I know when something is off or wrong. That's why God gave Moms intuition.  He took her while I looked for my phone. She cried for a few minutes, had some juice and was "out of it" for about 5. We watched her for an hour and decided to call the pediatrician's office. He told us to take her to the ER.

Cameron took her while I waited for my sister to come get Josiah. He went to St. Joseph's first and there was a 4 hour wait (that's where our pediatrician recommended), they sent Cam to UCI Medical Center. I met them there and we were whisked back to a little green room. We kept Mae busy with lots of Cheerios, juice, books and Cinderella doll. When we finally saw a doctor she said we need to do a CT Scan. Because Mae is 18 months old, they'd probably have to sedate her. At first they were going to use Benydryl, which I was all for. The less meds the better! She came back and said the head ER doctor said they'd have to do full blown "sleepy juice" as we call it here. Yikes. I prayed and prayed that they wouldn't have to and if they did that all would be OK. The LVN came in and inserted an IV in preparation. Nothing like holding down your kid and then keeping her from ripping out an IV. We're pretty sure that the LVN had us confused with the couple across the hallway because he mentioned something about going to CHOC hospital and the transport team was on their way for the CT scan. Wait, what? We were more than surprised. But Cameron asked and we were staying put. The couple across the hall from us had a little baby that had rolled off a couch and hit the back of his head, he'd been throwing up. I'm pretty sure they sent him to CHOC. Poor baby. At one point I met eyes with his Mom and gave her a "half smile" of encouragement. I prayed for them while I was in there.

Cameron was fried. His phone was dead, he had nothing to do while we waited. Poor guy. He's a real man. Not one word of complaint out of his mouth.

Mae fell asleep after we turned the lights off in the room and I rocked her to sleep. She woke up a few times screaming and tearing at her IV. She kept saying "No mo(re)!" which is new. Cameron and I zoned out in the dark waiting for the next step. We could hear the sounds of the ER, and the young woman next to us who was so completely wasted on something that she couldn't tell them her birthday. I could hear them calling her "Stephanie" and prodding her for information. I prayed for her, too. I thought about my baby girl in my arms and wondered where Stephanie's mom was. There were twins somewhere in the ER that we could hear off and on. They sounded so small. The worst thing I heard all night was a man (I don't know how old) yelling and shaking his bed and saying "Look at me now Mom! Is this what you wanted?" "I'll show you!" I didn't see him, but he sounded like his mouth was injured. I don't know what his story was, but it killed me to think about it. It's just amazing how when you least expect it, you see what a lost terrible place this world really is. You see how badly people need Jesus. I could feel how badly this world hurts the heart of God last night.

Around 1 AM they took Mae and I up to the CT scan room. I was nervous. I wanted her to hold still without any help. She lay there and I held her juice cup in her mouth. She was so, so tired at this point. I prayed for her to just keep still. I really didn't want for her to be sedated. She held still and they got the picture!! She was entranced by the machine and comforted by the sound I think. I also know that God helped to keep her head still. Mae is not one to be held down. She puts up a fight when you wipe her nose. She was a calm, intrigued child last night when that camera spun around her little head.

We went back down to the room and she fell back to sleep on the bed. I finally laid down next to her. Cameron grabbed the chair. Poor guy, always getting the lame chair during the hospital stay. I slept. She slept. I think Cameron slept a little. Around 3:30 they came in and told us everything was OK. The nurse came and removed the IV and we were on our way.

This morning Mae is up and enjoying a little "bad parenting". She's eating a Girl Scout cookie as a part of her balanced breakfast. Thank God we can go back to the routine. So many people don't get to this soon after an injury. Thank you thank you thank you to all of you that prayed and passed our prayer request along. We'll follow up with our pediatrician this week to see if anything else is going on.

Baby Mae is A-Okay!

1 comment:

Molly said...

Wow! How scary! I'm so glad everything is okay. A little girl in one of the swimming classes I taught would hold her breath instead of crying when she got injured, except you couldn't tell that's what she was doing. She just looked like she was about to cry. Anyway, she would hold her breath and it would cause her to seize. It happened one time while I was swimming with her--one of the scariest moments of my life. I'll be praying that Mae's follow-up appointment goes well!