I took these photos of Clover on Monday afternoon while she was out front picking bouquets with her little neighbor friend Claire.
Earlier (much earlier) that morning we had a very scary reminder of how extremely precious this beautiful little soul is to us. A reminder to cherish every sweet moment she brings to our days, of which there are so so many, and to put into perspective the trying moments as well, of which there are also many. It really is all a gift.
I wish I could say that her “new special nightgown” was something we picked up at the thrift store to add to the dress-up collection.
Unfortunately, it was given to her in the emergency room in the wee dark hours of the morning, her pink fairy nightshirt having been cut from her body with scissors.
It all began at about 5 am when Lucas and I were awoken by Clover thrashing around in her sleep (she had come into our bed earlier in the night as she does every night). That night as well as the night before she had had episodes maybe an hour or two after going to bed where she was sitting up awake and talking/mumbling but clearly still in a dream state. I was able to pretty easily rouse her out of it and get her back to sleep, unlike a full on night terror episode that we’d experienced with her a year or so ago.
My first thoughts were that something of this nature was happening. Her body thrashing about and her breathing heavy, she wasn’t responding to me. When Lucas turned the light on though, I could see that this was different. She was on her back, her eyes open but staring up, not focusing, her fists clenched and her small body rhythmically convulsing over and over. We still couldn’t get her to respond to us.
I turned to Lucas and said “she’s having a seizure, call 911.” and he did. Lucas stayed on the line with them as we waited for help to arrive, me in a frantic state of shock trying over and over to get through to her, to say something that would snap her out of it, bring her back. It kept going. After maybe 3, 4, 5 minutes (it felt like forever), the fire truck arrived and our room was suddenly full of strangers asking questions. Before I knew it Clover’s still convulsing little body was in the arms of one of the firemen or maybe an EMT, the ambulance had arrived.
As they carried her out I threw on some clothes, grabbed a pair of shoes, and ran out the door barefoot. I rode in the front seat of the ambulance, lights flashing, my little girl in the back still not responding. Feeling helpless, scared, in shock, my mouth had gone completely dry. Taking notice of bits of what they were saying “tonic clonic“ “IV“ “code 3”…
They were going to give her something that started with the letter V presumably to bring her out of the seizure. All of a sudden she was screaming, a guttural terrified scream that, while it broke my heart, was so relieving to hear. Apparently, she came out of it when they poked her to put the IV in. They never had to give her any medication. Which is good.
Luckily, we’re quite close to the hospital and I was able to be back by her side pretty quickly. Lucas met us there as she was being taken from the ambulance. She was looking at me again, upset, crying, who could blame her, not a fun way to wake up, she must have been so confused.
Once inside, she was hooked up to all kinds of monitors and poked again for a blood workup. There were lots of questions. “No, she didn’t have a fever. No, she didn’t have a fall or hit her head or ingest anything weird. Her behavior had been normal.” We were coming towards the end of a peaceful nights sleep, nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Once she got her bearings she started crying “Mommy, I want to go home.” “Me too sweetie, it’s ok. Mama’s here.” I was in the bed with her for most of our time there.
There was a chest x-ray followed by a CT scan followed by lots of waiting. In short, the blood work up, the x-ray, the scan, all came up clear. Nothing to indicate a cause was found. We were told that sometimes these things can occur once and never happen again, only time will tell. We’re very much hoping that will be the case. After a couple of the most stressful hours of our lives, we were thankful to be back at home with our again seemingly perfectly healthy little girl.
That entire day she refused to change out of her new “special nightgown” and she wore her bandages and ankle tags like badges of honor. She also had these little sticker things on her thighs with a metal knob in the middle like a snap. We called them her snaps and joked about snapping things to her legs. She thought that was pretty silly.
To everyone we saw that day, relatives and all her little neighbor friends, she showed off her special nightgown from the hospital and “I got this, and this, and this, and these” as she pointed to each bandage and anklet and snap attached to her body. “I rode in an ambulance and I stayed in the hospital ALL night!” It was dark when we went in and light when we came out so of course in her mind, we were there ALL night.
I’m just so glad she’s taken to looking back on the whole thing as an adventure of sorts rather than the big scary experience that it was. She’s a tough little cookie and I’d say she’s definitely earned her bragging rights.
After arriving back home that morning, we read a couple of books on the couch and then she slept for a couple of hours.
The kids are doing mother’s day crafts at pre-school this week and she made me this sweet card yesterday. For the record, I think she may be overestimating my enthusiasm when it comes to grocery shopping, however, that last line really pierces my heart.
