Just like Mom

We had fun getting ready this morning. Eli especially enjoyed curling his lashes. Dad would be so proud!

Getting ready for Spring

I'm ready for Spring to come. I hear birds outside, see blue sky....it must be close! I found these awesome rubber boots at Superstore. Now we are ready for some serious puddle jumping. Could they be any more fun? They even have fins on the back. Oh to be a kid again, I want a pair!

EEG was a success

The EEG appointment was on Thursday and I'm happy to report that it went amazingly well. Eli woke up an hour early that morning so he was nice and tired for the appointment. The technician took him and wrapped him in a blanket really tight so that he couldn't move his arms, this by far was the worst part. After that, she quickly got the sensors on his head which he didn't like, but didn't complain about too much. Then she wrapped his head in gauze so that the sensors wouldn't move. Brent held him, we turned out the lights and he was asleep within 30 seconds - I couldn't believe it. Neither could the technician, she said quite often it's 2 hours of crying. I think my super scheduling, and Brent's calming ways were the perfect combo. I was worried for nothing! She started recording right away and then after 25 mins we woke him up and got 5 mins of awake recordings. He wasn't even cranky when we woke him up. We had a 2 hour appointment and we were in and out in 45 minutes. We have a meeting the first week of March to get the results.

Just after getting the sensors on and head wrapped

Sleeping with Dad

Getting some awake recordings

Time to take all the sensors off - all done!

Round 2

Eli found the penaten yet again. No matter where we hide it he seems to find it. Luckily, the carpets escaped untouched! I can't say as much for Eli's face though.

18 months

I had some pictures taken of Eli in December, just before he turned 1 1/2. He did pretty well at the photo shoot, although, the photographer had to be fast to get the shots. His attention span was pretty short that day and he was really clinging to me. All and all, I'm amazed at how many she got. I must say, he looks pretty darn handsome :)

Doing great

Just a quick update on us. Eli is doing really good, he's totally back to normal. In fact, I think he might even be busier than he was - is that possible? He's eating great, happy and the only momento's of the hospital visit are a few tape marks on his arms. We have an EEG scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday Feb 4th and that will be the final test to see if anything out of the ordinary may have caused the seizure. They want Eli to fall asleep for the test. I have it scheduled for nap time, but I know he's going to really hate those sensors on his head. They told me that they glue them on and they are hard to get off, but if he's pulling at them they will wrap his head so that he can't get off them - he'll hate that even more!! Should be interesting at the least.

I have a feeling Eli won't be quite as cooperative as this girl is.

Bad start to the New Year

As some of you know, Eli was in the hospital over the weekend. I think that the blog would be a good place to update everyone on what happened.

Last Thursday morning, Eli had his 18 month vaccinations. He did great, didn't even cry and we had a very normal day afterwards. That night I went out shopping with Dionne and Brent was home with Eli. They went over to a friends house to feed their cats while on holidays. After they were done, Brent strapped Eli into the car seat, gave him a cookie and started to drive home. A few minutes later, around 7pm, he looked in the back seat and saw that Eli was in distress. Brent thought that he was choking on the cookie. He was gasping for air with his eyes rolled back and arms stiff. He slammed on the breaks, put on the flashers and got Eli out of the car. He waved down another car who called 911. Brent proceeded to give Eli CPR on the side of the road until the ambulance came while the driver of the other car said a prayer for Eli and talked to EMS.

The ambulance was there within 3 minutes and whisked Eli away. They wouldn't let Brent inside to see what was going on. Brent called his mom, told her what was happening and where they were so that she could come pick up his vehicle. The EMS came out and told Brent that Eli wasn't choking, but having a seizure. They took off to the hospital with Brent inside the ambulance. They gave Eli medication to stop the seizure, and it did, but started again. They had to give Eli another medication which was stronger. It worked to stop the seizure, but also stopped his breathing so they had to breathe for him to the hospital. They couldn't get an IV into Eli the usual way (neck) so they put the IV right into his bone marrow in his leg so that it would be immediate. He did not have a fever at this time.

I still had no idea that any of this was going on. When I got home, Casey (a friend) was at our house waiting for me. He told me what happened and drove me to the Children's hospital. When I got there Eli was sleeping in Emergency and already had a cat scan. The scan showed that there was no damage caused by the seizure but they wanted to admit Eli to monitor him and further investigate. He had blood taken for testing in emergency as well as IVs in both of his hands.

Once admitted, Eli was still sleeping. Brent and I stayed the night with Eli. He woke up around 11 pm and was very dopey from all the medication that he had been given. He also now had a fever. He was uncomfortable with the IVs and generally unhappy. He didn't go back to sleep. At 3 am they decided that they wanted to get some of his spinal fluid to test. He was also moved to isolation at the hospital because they were worried that he might have an infection that caused the fever. I took him into the procedure room and held him while they gave him a sedative via the IV. It didn't work so they gave him another dose. After and hour and 5 doses of the sedative Eli never did go under for the spinal tap. They had never seen that happen before. It did make him totally spaced out from the drugs, but not tired. They decided to do the spinal tap anyway and I left the room so they could do the procedure. I'm glad I did not stay there to see that one. He did not go to sleep that night. He finally fell asleep at 5:30 am and only slept for 1 hour. We all were exhausted.

The next day (Friday), he was so tired. His eyes were droopy, he was totally drugged still, and he was not a happy boy. We were so lucky to have family to do some shift relief so Brent and I could go home and sleep for a few hours. They also had to re-do his IVs since they had gone interstitial or come out. He hated those IVs! He also needed a catheter to take a urine sample for testing. He finally fell asleep that night at 6pm and slept through until 4am. I slept in the twin bed in the room, and Brent slept on the floor.

Saturday, Eli was doing so much better. That sleep made a world of difference. All of the grandparents and Auntie Burdine came and took shifts with Eli so that we could have a break. I know Eli appreciated all the different people there to keep him company. He napped a lot that day. He was really wobbly on his feet as one of the side effects of the anti0-seizure medication was loss of balance. He would get very frustrated because he wanted to do things, but couldn't because of his lack of balance. He also got his IV out on Sat evening which made him so much happier. Sat night, he slept through again.

Sunday morning Eli was back to his old self. He was smiling and walking around the room. We were so happy!! All of his tests came back negative for viral or bacterial infection so we were cleared to go home. We have a follow up EEG (brain wave) scan with the neurologist sometime this month and than will see them again in the Spring. We were so happy to be discharged. It's not easy to keep an active toddler happy and busy in a hospital room when you are in isolation and can't leave!

Eli had an atypical febrile seizure. It was considered atypical because of how long the seizure was (more than 15 minutes), it was "focused" - meaning that his eyes were pointed in one direction rather than straight back, and because his fever came after the seizure, not before. We need to be very diligent on being proactive with Tylenol for fevers in the future. It doesn't need to be a very high temperature fever, but even just a quick rise in temperature can be enough. Eli's fever was never more than 38.8 degrees. He still has a risk of having another one, but some kids only have one and never another one. I hope he's in the second category and not the first. But, if it does happen again we are much more prepared now.

We are so thankful that he is OK, no damage was done and so happy to be home. He won't remember any of this. Thank you so much to our great family for helping out. We could not have done it without you.

You have to be creative when trying to entertain a toddler in a small hospital room. Here's a video of him having some fun in the room.