Little Brother’s Trip to the Hospital

May is kinda a sucky month for me. 1. It’s the month Phoenix passed away. 2. Mother’s Day. But, this May has really kicked us in the butt. Over Mother’s Day weekend Little Brother ran a high fever for close to 36 hours. While we never took him to the doctors I did call the nurses line a couple time. Things seemed to be clearing up Sunday afternoon but Little Brother was a bit stumbly. The unsteadiness was still there on Tuesday morning and I took him to see his doctor. Since he didn’t have an ear infection like they thought they ran some blood work and sent us home. During lunch, Little Brother had a seizure. I called 911 and the paramedics showed up.. Since he wasn’t seizing when they got there they allowed me to drive him to the ER instead of taking an ambulance  (we live 5 min from a children’s hospital so everybody was okay with this).

After being in the ER for about 2 hours or so Little Brother had a second seizure. A CT scan was ordered and it took 3 tries to get him to lay still. They finally had to sedate him in order to the run the test; which came back clear!  After spending a total of 7 hours in the ER, we were admitted to the hospital. Little Brother was able to eat some dinner. He gobbled down 2 Lunchables and an applesauce pouch. The night wasn’t horrible. At one point though they had to take his IV out that they placed in the ER and put a new one in because it wasn’t done well enough. They used an ultra sound machine to find the vein and place the needle. (I wish this had been around for Phoenix because it was amazing) We thought he was going to get an MRI in the morning, but come to find out the MRI was scheduled for 4pm. Poor little guy had to go all day without eating and he WAS MISARBLE. This day (Wednesday) he could barely even stand without tipping over. Around 3:15 they started his EEG, but because it took so long to set up they had to cut the test short because it was his turn for the MRI and they were not going to hold his spot. Thankfully, they got enough data and it all looked great! Finally, after his MRI he was able to eat something and eat seemed to feel better after that. While he was still a little unsteady he was able to stand and walk a little bit. We got the results of the MRI and it came back clear as well! So, the official diagnosis is acute cerebellar ataxia. Basically the virus that he had over the weekend caused inflammation in his cerebellum. And, to top it off he also had fluid in his sinus that went all the way back to his middle ear. Good news, this goes away on its own! Thursday afternoon we were released after spending 48 hours in the hospital.

So yeah, I was really freaked out about this. Not only is it suspected that Phoenix has a seizure when she died but this IS the month she died in! I am doing good now. Tired from the whole ordeal, but good. One thing Luke and I noticed is that we were on the same hall that Phoenix was one when she admitted to this hospital. We were only a few rooms away.  The feeling of walking down the hallways was just the same. The feeling of wondering when you will get out of there was just the same. It was eery.

In about 1 week it will be 2 years since Phoenix passed, and the last place I expected to be was at a hospital with Little Brother. But, I guess I should stop expected things to go the way I think they will.