What A Week!

This has been a pretty tough week, but it's getting much better...

Joshua was sick last week, but I had no idea how sick he really was. He wasn't wanting to eat anything but crackers, but he was drinking a lot as usual. I called the doctor Saturday morning, and they told me that if he was not any better by Monday I should call and get an appointment for him. He had diarrhea on Wednesday and Saturday, but he still had a lot of energy. He just wasn't eating right. I even took him to my uncle's house on Easter, and he went on a hay ride and had so much fun.

Monday morning came along, and he did not want to eat breakfast. I decided that I was going to call the doctor. At 9:30 am, I called the doctor and got him an appointment for 10:30 am. I wasn't even sure that he really needed to go. My husband had a stomach virus, and it seemed like Joshua had the same thing, so I figured it was something that just needed to pass. Although he wasn't eating well, Joshua was keeping up pretty well with his fluids. I decided to take a quick shower before his appointment. I put a Veggie Tales movie on for Joshua, and I took my shower. As I stepped out of the shower, I heard a blood-curdling scream coming from him. He sounded terrified, so I ran down to find that he threw up everywhere (which is probably why he screamed), and he was laying on the floor having a seizure! I have never seen anything so terrifying in my life. By the time I got to him, the seizure had stopped, but he was slipping in and out of consciousness. I picked him up, and his eyes were rolling back into his head, and his head kept tilting backwards. I was afraid that he might be choking on vomit, at first, so I put him over my shoulder so he could hopefully breathe better. I called 911 in a panic, and they sent an ambulance. I couldn't get Joshua to wake up. His eyes kept opening and closing, but when they were open he would never look directly at me. He also kept making these strange soft noises that sounded so terrible. I honestly thought he was dieing. I was so afraid that if he lost consciousness for good he would either be in a coma or die. I kept screaming for God to help us, and I didn't know what to do. I called my pastors, and I thank God that one of them answered, because I was in such a panic. I just wanted someone to pray for him with me. I still had to get dressed at this point (from getting out of the shower), and I was so afraid to put him down. I was so afraid that if I put him down he would die. I finally quickly laid him on his side, and Pastor's Steve and Mamie prayed as I had them on speaker phone while I got dressed and picked him back up. I thought FOR SURE that Joshua was going to die without God's intervention. I called my husband to tell him, and then I called a friend to ask her to pray (Thanks, Mary!). I eventually sat down on the couch with him and sang "Jesus Loves You" to him, because I sing that to him every night before he goes to sleep. That song has always comforted him. The ambulance then finally came and by the time we arrived to the hospital, Joshua was a little responsive (fighting the oxygen tube), but he wouldn't open his eyes. They cleaned him up at the hospital (he had vomit all over him), gave him an IV and took some blood. He opened up his eyes and started screaming when they stripped him down to clean him, and I was never so glad to hear him scream. Looking back, I feel so bad for him, because I'm sure he remembers nothing between being at home watching a movie until he was awakened by nurses wiping him down with cold wipes in the hospital. That had to be awfully confusing! Hours went by, and he just slept and slept. I guess it's normal for the body to do this after a seizure.

About 3 hrs. after his seizure, I stopped by the cafeteria in the hospital real quick to get something to eat. I was starving and realized that I better take care of myself, especially since I'm pregnant. When I came back into the room, Joshua was sitting up talking to my husband and looked at me saying, "Hi Mommy!". My heart just melted. As he was talking to us, he was talking about all sorts of things that he knew before, so my fears of brain damage were starting to fade away quickly.

It turns out that he was dehydrated and possibly had a quick temperature spike that caused the seizure. They are called febrile seizures and are actually supposed to be common in children ages 6 months to 5 yrs. old! They are usually harmless, although they are quite terrifying to watch. Since our local hospital does not admit children, they transferred him to another hospital that does. He spent the night there (so did my husband and I), and we left the next afternoon once they were sure he was stable enough to leave.

Since then, Joshua's appetite is back and he seems to be doing well. What a scary experience. I'm having trouble getting that vision out of my mind of his seizure and what he looked like afterwards. I feel so bad that I took a shower and wasn't there for the beginning of it, also. I didn't know he was that sick, though. I just didn't know. What's weird, though, is that I feel like I'm grieving over something that didn't happen. My husband was home today, so I went to run a couple of errands while he and Joshua stayed home. As I drove past an elementary school, I saw what looked to be like a classroom of kindergartners outside. My heart sank as I realized that if Joshua would have died I would have such a terrible time in a couple years seeing a kindergartner the year that Joshua was supposed to be in kindergarten. I feel like I'm grieving, but Joshua didn't die! I thought, though, for those 10 minutes before the ambulance came, that he really might die. I guess this is just part of the process of healing from this situation. Now I'm beginning to understand what people with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) must experience.

I thank God for saving him, and for Joshua seemingly having no recollection of the whole event. I was nervous to come back home from the hospital, because I didn't want to look at his vomit on the floor and be reminded of the whole thing. As I walked down the steps to that room, it was like time actually stopped for a couple of days. I had left all of the lights on, Veggie Tales was still playing (over and over), and it was almost like we were just there. I got the rug scrubber out and cleaned the carpet, though, and it's much better now.

Here are a couple pictures of him in the hospital a few hours before we left on Tuesday. The one picture is of him when we were leaving. He wanted to walk instead of being carried. I never got him a change of clothes before the ambulance came the day before, so he wore his hospital gown, socks and my jacket on the way out!






Thank you, Jesus, that I ALWAYS have You to lean on. I sometimes don't know what I'd do if I thought I had to do this all by myself. This situation really caused me to wonder how people who aren't Christian's can make it through certain situations without knowing they have Jesus to lean on throughout it all. This was definitely one of those times.