We had a very scary occasion over the weekend. A lot of people have asked about details so I thought I would explain how everything happened for those whoare interested. Wes had come down with a cough last week and Bri started to seem fussy on Wednesday, it appeared she, too, was catching something. On Thursday night she had a low feverand on Friday when she was still feverish and very fussy (which is very odd, she really is almost always happy) and Wes was still sick I took them in to the dr. Wes was prescribed antibiotics for a sinus infection, but since Bri really had no symptoms and only a low fever there was really nothing to do for her. On Saturday her fever rose to 100 and she was again very fussy and lethargic. Kurt and I actually went to Magic Mountain, but when we got her at 5 she really didnt seem like herself. Shortly thereafter I thought she seemed to be breathing very fast and grew concerned. It even seemed like she was regularly neglecting to breathe for a second or two at a time and her fever was up to 102. I put her in the car and drove to urgent care, but they had closed about an hour earlier so we went back home and I let her nap in my arms while I continued to monitor her. At 8 I decided to wake her for a bottle since she hadskipped her last meal, and when I came back with her bottle she had woken, but was clearly not okay. She was trying to move but couldn't really, her head bent slightly back, and this time my thermometer read 106, so we ran to the ER. I was terrified, I had had an uneasy feeling since 5ish but now I thought I might lose her. When I ran into the waiting room I was crying and the guard told me to fill out the paperwork.I was floored, and I told him we need to go in right away with increasing anxiety in my demeanor. When he slowly picked up the phone to call about it I lost it. I started screaming that someone needed to open the door, she was shaking and didn't appear to be breathing, almost everyone in the busy room jumped up and started to yell in my defense. It was only about a minute, but probably the longest in my life. The checked her out and reassured me that she was breathing, but admitted she didn't look well. Whilehooking up the iv she did stop breathing, and then began to seize. By then the iv was in so they were able to get drugs in her right away to stop the seizure, which also knocked her out. From there the administered tylenol and motrin, then did a chest xray, blood and urine culture, cat scan, and a spinal tap to rule out all serious diseases. After she was stable we were transfered to the pediatric icu inTarzana by ambulence. We arrived at 2:30 am. Her fever spiked again that night but went down with meds and from there she continued to improve, so we were moved to the regular pediatric unit. At this point she was really doing well, but they were adamant about keeping her 48 hours to keep rechecking the labs and make sure nothing else showed up. The real challenge at this point was keeping a new crawler content staying in bed for two days. We were released last night and by this morning Bri has been doing great, you wouldn't even know she was sick at all. There is still no answer as to what caused all of it other than to say it was a virus that she reacted badly to. We are so incredibly thankful for all of the prayers and support we received during this scary time, they were a tremendous source of comfort.
A few pictures from the ordeal after things calmed down:
In the picu, you can see in her eyes the remnants of the drugs they had to give her for
the spinal tap.
Also in the picu, continuing to get happier and back to herself.
In the peds ward, we got creative and put a blanket on the floor so she could have a little crawling space.
