At 6AM my mom-tuition woke me up. I sat up and looked around the room. Everything seemed to be ok. I checked James and all of his monitors. All ok. I checked to make sure all of my things were still in the room and they were. My intuition is very rarely off, especially if it's strong enough to wake me. I decided to lie back down, listen to some music, and wait for whatever "it" was to come.
About 1 minute later, James' nurse came in to the room to let me know that his blood sugar levels were very low and the doctors were concerned. It was decided that he'd get 25ml's of apple juice and we'd check it again in 30 minutes to see how much it had improved.
I gave him his apple juice which he took with great happiness! What kid doesn't love apple juice? While I was doing that, the nurse had taken, and then retaken, and retaken a third time, James' blood pressure. She said it too was very low and she stepped out to go inform the doctor in charge of James' care. I sat back down on my bed and still couldn't shake the feeling that something else was in the works.
I drank some water and checked out my newsfeed on facebook still bothered by an unsettled feeling, when I saw it. I knew why I was awake now. I watched James' heart rate jump from 98 to 150 in a flash. I jumped out of my bed and sure enough he was having a seizure. I rang the nurse, clicked the sensor on the EEG, and settled in at James' side.
It was one of his small seizures. It presents as an absence seizure but also has a myoclonic jerk with it. I'm not sure which one the neurologists would like to classify it under, but I've labeled it as "small". That label works just fine for Mike and I. They only last for 4-5 seconds and don't appear to have a postictal stage but, if they cluster together he'll need his Diastat rescue medicine.
The "small" seizures are clustered and after 10 minutes he is given Ativan since they had to put in an IV after yesterday's seizures. 15 minutes pass and he seems to be settling down. The team of doctors and nurses that have congregated by his bed side start to disperse. His nurse stays with us to monitor the situation and make sure that the medication has in fact done it's job.
James appears to be calm and sleepy when he has this itty bitty seizure. It initially appeared almost like a twitch not too alarming but then he "got stuck". Again, that's not proper terminology but it is exactly what it looks like. He's lost somewhere in his mind. His stare is unproductive. He's looking but not seeing. I am unsure if he can hear me but I like to think he can. When he "gets stuck" is when the seizures go from mettlesome to scary. He no longer twitches but his body has a rhythmic pulsing and he stops breathing all together. If you imagine a grand mal seizure from a scene in a movie, it's similar in a sense but not so dramatic. It's less obvious but much more concerning. The most concerning part is that he's "stuck" and I never know for sure what will "unstick" him.
We rang for the team again, kept clicking the EEG, and he now received his Diastat. Still stuck.
Oxygen. Suction. Seizure breaks.
Back in. Stuck again. Longer. Oxygen. Suction. Break.
6:28 .... 6:38 ... 6:48 ... 7AM.
Sleeping.
New plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment