Craziness!

So, way back in the day, I was going to post about our recent vacation to Florida. While that was an awesome trip (except the traveling), so much has happened since then that I'm just going to say a few things. First, it was so great to see our good friends again. We hadn't seen them since Braden was a baby, so it had been about three years and a kid for each family. That was the best part was seeing them again. Second, Braden sprained his ankle the second day we were there. We don't know how, he just started limping one night, and the next morning he had a bruise and was swelling. (By the way, Braden is one of those kids who will take flying leaps off of four foot high stages. He hadn't done anything remotely like that for days!) He spent a whole day crawling because he refused to stand on his foot, then woke up the next morning and said, "Mommy, my ankle's all better!" Sure didn't slow him down much, huh? Third, I did get pictures, but most of them are on a disposable waterproof camera which has not been developed yet, so, sorry. No pictures today.

Okay, getting on with the craziness. Kevin and I have been in the process of buying a house, and we closed on it (finally!) the last day of our vacation. Nice to have keys waiting for us when we got home. Well, we knew we were going to have it cleaned, and so when we had people out to do estimates, we found out the carpet that we thought was just dirty was destroyed by dog urine. Sick. So we had to replace the carpet. I'm kinda glad because I love our new carpet.

Anyways, come Monday morning of the week everything for the house is supposed to happen (carpet replacement, fridge delivery, cleaning, etc.) Noah has a seizure. I am not kidding when I say it was the scariest thing that has ever happened in my life. He was sitting on the floor next to me crying for me to pick him up while I was trying to make pancakes for Braden. He stops crying, and then I hear a thunk, so I look over at him, and he was laying on his side on the floor, not doing anything. He does this sometimes when he's really tired, and he was just getting over a bug, so I didn't think anything about it and went back to turning a pancake. As soon as it was turned, I looked at him again and he had stiffened up, was twitching and drooling, his eyes were rolled back into his head, and his lips were turning blue. Now, it's a good thing that I don't panic, because I would have. I just about did. I started yelling for Kevin, but I wasn't getting much out, so I picked Noah up and ran him to Kevin. Kevin had just gotten out of the shower, so he threw on some clothes and gave Noah a blessing. Right away the twitching stops and he loosens up, but the look he gave us was horrifying, like, "Do I know you?" He wasn't scared, just confused, and then he fell asleep. We rushed him to the ER and they took his temp (99.1) and his vitals then got us into a room. The doctor actually showed up fairly quickly, took a look at him and decided that Noah had a bad ear infection and that therefore the seizure was a febrile seizure. They're actually fairly common. Some kids have them some don't, and they grow out of it. He then says that we were being very calm, and we're not sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or a suspicion about our parenting. So he sends us on our way with a prescription for antibiotics. We go home, get his medicine and give him a dose, and are chilling when Noah starts getting clinging and crying inconsolably again. He loves going outside, so I thought that would help. Kevin took him out while I went to change out of my PJ's when Kevin yells that he was doing it again! Noah was wandering around, decided he wanted to go back inside and starts to go in then he stops and stiffens up. Luckily, Kevin saw this and grabbed him before the actual seizure started, 'cause Noah would have fallen onto concrete, which would have made things worse. As soon as he stops, we put him back in the car, take him back to the ER where they decide to do some tests. They do a urine sample (catheter for the poor little guy!) blood test (kept an IV in, too, just in case), lumbar puncture (or spinal tap), and a CT scan. Poor little guy! He was NOT happy. And because he kept trying to pull the IV out, they put a foam brace on his hand to keep him from getting to the IV. Noah kept trying to shake the brace off, which was kind of funny. While we were trying to calm him down for the CT scan (you have to be perfectly still for it, and he was crying again) he had another seizure. Since we were right there in the hospital, the doctor and a bunch of nurses come running and load him up on something, which is a lot like Valium and used to stop seizures. That knocked him out, so they rushed him in to do the scan, and had to kick some one out so we could do it while Noah was in his after-effects. They couldn't get ahold of our pediatrician, so they had the oncall one come down and look at him. She used to be Noah's doctor, and we trusted her, so that was nice for us. She looked at Noah and said that he did not have an ear infection, and that we were going to be kept overnight for observation. More than one seizure in a day is not normal. We ended up being in the hospital for the rest of that day and most of the next. It was after 4:00 when we finally got to go home. While we were in the hospital, my dad calls, out of the blue. When I tell him what's going on, he informs me that there is a family history of epilepsy. Such a nightmare! The results of his tests all came back clean, so we were referred to a pediatric neurologist in Reno (that's an hour away, for those who don't know) with an appointment at 7:45 the next morning to do an EEG and then another appointment at 1:00 pm the same day to go over the results and talk with the doctor about what happened. So Wednesday morning we show up for the EEG another test where you need to be still, and preferably asleep, for half an hour. Once the electrodes were on, Noah, the little champ, slept through the test. They had a bed like table , so I laid down with him and also fell asleep. Since it was ridiculous to go home and come back, we stayed in town and took Noah to Scheel's and then to lunch. It was actually fun, and was a much needed break from stress. We go back to the second appointment, find out that the EEG was normal (Yay!) so she's pretty sure it's not epilepsy. She had us tell her exactly what happened, asked a few personal history questions, watched Noah play (ha!) for a little while, then told us what she thought. She thinks that it's like how some kids get upset and hold their breath until they pass out, only Noah was having seizures instead of passing out, and most likely not doing it on purpose. Basically, he was crying so hard that he wasn't getting enough oxygen to his brain, which was causing seizures. She warned us that this would most likely happen again, sent us home with a couple of prescriptions in case it does, and told us that she hoped not to hear from us again. So far, Noah has not had any more seizures, and is doing great! Thanks for all your prayers for Noah. We really appreciate them.

But this is not where the story ends. Like I said earlier, we had all sorts of house stuf going on that week. Luckily, Kevin's sister and brother in law offered to clean our house for cheaper than the pros, so we had them around for all of the stuff that was going on with the house. That was all done by Thursday, so we spent the rest of the week packing and moving. That wouldn't have been a big deal, but we had to speak in church that Sunday. There was pretty much about 10 minutes worth of preparation, because I kept falling asleep sitting up at the table Saturday night, and church was at 9:00 the next morning. Fortunately for me, we were assigned conference talks, which was a big help. I have a hard time giving talks and filling up my time (once I spoke for two minutes after spending the whole week preparing and Kevin got stuck with the rest of the time), but I ended up speaking for twenty minutes! Holy Moley! I sat down and Kevin looked at me and said, "Geez, you sure talked forever." I thought he was kidding til I looked at the clock. I tell you what, that was purely me being blessed. I never could have done that on my own.

So that's the drama formerly known as my life.