Instead of going to Dallas and being part of the biggest SWEA Lucia celebration (this year was the biggest in its history in Dallas with 39 kids!) Elina and I spent the day at Baptist hospital. (So I guess there were only 36 kids in the Lucia procession).
Friday, Dec 3 - noonish
Elina suffered two major seizures early Friday morning. I knew something was wrong when she would not respond to me as I was trying to get her out of bed at 6.30 am. She opened her eyes with a shocked, yet absent look. She had wet the bed and I was astonished since Elina has never done that before, ever. Even as a baby she would often have a dry diaper in the mornings. We lifted her out of bed, stripped the sheets etc. Mark said he had accidentally given her Isak's slightly higher allergy medicine dose the night before, and wondered if this had made her super drowsy. The only communication I received from her was a short nod when I asked for the fifth time if she could talk. She could not hold her balance when getting dressed, and her eyes flickered a bit.
Mark and Isak left at 7.30 am, and I was waiting for Elina to snap out of it. I began to make arrangements for someone to watch Julia and Anja while I took Elina to the doctor. My good friend Inger said she could be there by 8.30. I called poison control to see if the allergy medicine could have anything to do with it, but they reassured me that she could have taken twice the dose without anything like this resulting, which is what I expected to hear. So by 7.45 I decided to just take her in, her eyes were flickering back and forth a bit and her mouth was twitching in the corner, and I said to myself, "It is like she is having a seizure!" I put Julia in the car, started it, and went to just check on Elina again, with the intent of then getting Anja out of her bed and into the car, and last Elina. But I was not prepared for the sight I received.
Elina was convulsing uncontrollably, foam and phlegm running out of her mouth and onto her pillow and down her left shoulder, her face contorted to one side, while her head, arms and legs were jerking and her body stiff and uncontrollable, eyes open and glassy. I weighed the option of calling an ambulance for one second, but decided I would get to the hospital faster than they would get to our house. Little Anja was still snuggling in her bed, semi-awake. I just left her, carried Elina out into the car and laid her across the front passenger seat. She could not sit up. I did obey red lights, but otherwise drove like a car thief, thinking that if police would try to pull me over they would just have to chase me to the hospital. I called Mark and Inger both on the way and left messages to please go to our house and be with Anja.
I parked by the ER doors and carried her in at about 8 am, still seizing as before. No triage necessary. It was not until 10 am that she looked at me somewhat purposefully - right after a priesthood blessing. They did blood work, gave her valium, gave her a CAT scan, chest X-ray, a spinal tap (awful - three grown men holding her down), put a catheter on her until she bled (she resisted big time).
CAT scan at the ER
At noon she was transferred to Integris Baptist in an ambulance and she can only remember events from right before the transfer. At Baptist they did an EEG (electrodes on her head) and though none of the other tests had showed anything abnormal, this one did, suggesting that an area on the rear left side of her brain has caused the seizure. We will find out more, hopefully, after the MRI is done. Right now the neurologist estimates a 50/50 chance at a seizure reoccurring.
hospital hallway
Elina's room.
She does have pneumonia and an ear infection - though she has not had a fever or otherwise proved ill, except for a nasty cough and very mild asthma symptoms. She is being treated for both. The pneumonia spot on the chest X-ray could be from having had a cold for a couple of weeks, but it can also be from having aspirated mucus during one of her seizures, that this is what showed up on the X-ray. I learned that if a seizure lasts more than 30 minutes is called status epilepticus which if left untreated can result in significant morbidity and death. There is no telling how long the one lasted that she had during the night that no one witnessed. The one I saw lasted for about 15-20 minutes but she was completely out of it, before and after, for a lot longer than that. And most alarming: the seizing did not stop on its own, but only after she received medication.
Feeling better!
Her favorite blanket from home (a Christmas present from Uncle Jim two years ago).
She has been prescribed an emergency anti-seizure medication and I feel good about having something on hand, at home and at school, that can be given if it should happen again.
She liked coloring, but she kept asking to go here:
She saw this room as she was rolled into the hospital and kept asking to go.
But the nurses wouldn't let her.
She watched "Word Girl" instead.
Elina is acting pretty much normally now - playing with her siblings and toys this evening and together we watched Julkalendern, Hotell Kantarell and the breathtakingly thrilling penultimate episode of Barda - best kid show EVER (at least if you ask Isak, who, by the way, cooked 'dinner' - scrambled eggs - for his siblings on Friday when Mark and I were gone).
She did not eat for 40 hours (threw everything up) so I am glad to report that she has eaten three good meals since her hospital release. Her brain is working slowly, and she is a bit spacey. After coming out of the seizure she kept saying "I can't think of the words" or "I can't remember what I was going to say." She needs time to think through what she wants to say and can't be rushed. Often gives long explanations for simple things ("give me a drink of water" became "take the cup to the faucet, hold it underneath, turn it on, fill it up then bring the cup to my mouth so I can drink"). She does not remember anything that happened to her from 6.30-11.45 on Friday and she describes waking up in the hospital as confusing and that even though she opened her eyes she could not see well - she didn't know up from down and that people looked like they were under water. Her first questions were related to where she was, what day and time it was, if she missed school and who were taking care of Anja, Julia and Isak since Mark and I were with her in the hospital. Mark later left and I spent the night with Elina.
She kept being struck by sudden spells of fear in the hospital, even when I was in the same room. I slept in the bed with her on her request. Now at home she won't sleep in her own bed, and frankly, I want her in mine just to keep an eye one her, at least until the MRI gives us a better idea of what exactly is happening in her brain.
Needless to say we are extremely grateful that she is back to normal again!! And praying it will not recur.
