Craziness!

Back in 2005, when I found out I was pregnant with Mason, I joined a group on BabyCenter for moms who were going to have their babies in September, 2005. There were a few people I really hit it off with. We became close friends. All of us were many miles away. A group of about 10 of us met up in Virginia in June, 2008 to meet for the very first time. One of those great friends was named Lindsay. (Apparently, that’s a cool name to have!). She and I have always hit it off. I’ve talked about her here before. She’s a writer and an awesome friend. But she lives way too far away- Seattle. Imagine my surprise 2 weeks ago when I get a text from her saying there’s a writers conference at Univ. of Dayton and she wants to attend, but wanted to know how far it was from my house. Dude. 45 minutes. Book your flight, you are going. That was pretty much my response. Totally not easy for her. She has 4 kids- A 4yr old, 2 yr old and 7 month old twins. That’s a lot of babysitting to get together to leave for 5 days. But she did it and she flew in on Wednesday. She’s so awesome and it’s been a total blast to have her here. Even bigger perk, one baby came with her to hang out with me! So, I’ve gotten my baby fix and realized there’s no way my sanity could handle three kids. Well, maybe it could, but I’m not willing to risk it…oh wait…that whole lack of uterus thing makes it no risk at all. Phew, we’re good. The risk factor comes in after this past week we’ve had. Want to hear about it? Well you’re going to.

I’m sure you remember like 3 posts ago (which was over a month ago, since you all know how good at this blogging thing I am) I mentioned Mason was going in for an appointment with GI looking for some sort of diagnosis as to his eating issues. We went on Tuesday and we got one- well, possibly a couple. 1- he has severe reflux. As in his throat was stained white and damaged from so much acid. Great. The kid has NEVER mentioned a tummy ache, sore throat or anything. But that explains why he only eats applesauce and soy yogurt- they are soft and “safe”. We also go the impression that they were fairly confident in the eosinophillic esophigits diagnosis based on exam, but they need an endoscopy and biopsy of esophagus, stomach, intestine and duodenum to confirm. We will have that in May. Meanwhile, they gave us some Prevacid to start for 4 weeks prior to endoscopy. Thank goodness for soymilk, since some days that is literally the only thing that goes into my child.

Wednesday was supposed to be a GREAT day. Lins was flying into Dayton at 9am. So I had to get up early to get her. 11:30pm on Tuesday, for the 3rd time in two weeks, Brody woke up and complained about his head/ear hurting. So we came downstairs. And just as the 3 previous times, he vomited and then fell asleep for several hours. The first couple times I played it off as a virus. The third time in 2 weeks, my mind started to race. There’s no fever. He’s got headache, he couldn’t walk or sit up b/c he was dizzy, he was vomiting. Don’t google those symptoms. I was worried, and now it was 5:15. I had to be up at 6:30 to go get Lins. Dave woke up, I explained it all to him, he volunteered to stay home with Brody while Mason and I went to get Lins and Wyatt. I grabbed an hour nap, got Mason up and we headed out. Lins and Wyatt were there, picked them up and headed home. I was on the phone with my mom who told me to take Brody to the doc, I agreed it was necessary, so I made him an appointment for 12:00. Immediately after that, I got my very first speeding ticket. Adding insult to injury for the day. Stupid construction zone. That’s all I have to say about that. (well, that and it’s double the fine in a construction zone. uncool.)

I got home, Brody was on the couch and woke up. He whimpered a bit then looked at me. But he looked like he was staring straight through me. He wasn’t really responding, just staring. It was creepy and uncharacteristic of my charismatic little boy. My mom came to get Mason since I was going to take B to the doc and then we decided the doc was just going to send us to the hospital, so we’d skip a step and just go straight there. At this point, I was worried. He was lethargic and not moving. Just staring. Then as I was sitting by him on the phone to his doc, he went completely limp, eyes rolled back in his head and they started twitching. My first thought was seizure. But I didn’t know. So then I knew for sure we were heading to the Hospital. Children’s is 30 minutes away. I loaded up the car, came back to get Brody and again he was staring and then he did it again. I got even more worried. Not knowing how threatening seizures were- or what was really even wrong with him, I decided I was not about to drive in the car by myself with an lethargic, seizing child for 30minutes to the hospital. Nope. I’m not an overly paranoid mom. But I called for an ambulance. And I’m thankful I did since he had another (confirmed) seizure in the ambulance on the way there. His oxygen dropped for a bit and then he just continued to stare. It was crazy. That was the last one he had for the day. And I was glad the medic saw it and confirmed what it was. We got to the hospital and after telling the story of the last two weeks, we went straight to CT scan. He got and IV and blood work and we waited. At this point he was “coming to” a bit more. Sleeping off and on and somewhat responding to the nurses. They were definitely concerned and no one left our side for the first hour we were there.

Welcome to Ohio, Lins. You’ve met the cops, the medics and now I’m leaving you in a strange place by yourself. See ya later!

We spent 5 hours at the ER. They originally told us his CT showed only a small cyst and otherwise was ok. We went home with no answers and were told to follow up with neurology the next day. Well, Thursday morning, the neurologist called me. He said he reviewed the CT and saw two spots of swelling in the brain. The seizure could have caused them or they could have caused the seizure. After a brief history and realizing he had no head trauma or anything, we were leaning towards the seizure causing the swelling. We hope. So today we go in for an EEG. And then we follow up next week.

Meanwhile, Lins and I got to hang out and have a great day yesterday. She went to the first part of her conference, I watched sweet little Wy and we had a good day.

Dave got an amazing job offer last week and starts on the 26th. By amazing I mean, more money, good benefits, doing more of what he likes to do… just all around a good job!!! We’re so excited. And since starting a new job isn’t the exact time to be taking a vacation, we decided to hold off on vacation plans for this summer and instead take a few days next week and just go away. After this week, and after the stress this momma needs a break. We are thinking of going to Great Wolf Lodge for a few days. The kids LOVE water. I don’t want to go too far given recent circumstances but yet I want to escape somewhere. Seemed like a good choice. Spending some time, just the four of us away from the outside world.

In other news, Mason has his very first T-ball game tomorrow. He’s so cute in his little uniform. Brody starts swimming next week and Dave has his first softball game next week too. Going to be a busy week! On top of more doctor appointments and tests. Whew, this has all been exhausting.

So that’s our life from this week in a nutshell.