Aislynn Had a Seizure

So May 8th wasn't a great day for me... at all. I was thinking heavily about the loss of my former boss' son. I kept thinking how hard it would be to loose a child. We have been very blessed to have two very healthy children. Tyler and Aislynn are always happy, healthy and full of life. But that past Tuesday really opened up my eyes...

We arrived at my father-in-laws at about 6:30 PM. We were going to have dinner and Ryan and his dad were going to replace some parts on our cars. Ryan and FIL weren't at the house when we got there, so it was MIL, Tyler, Aislynn and I. We went outside to go play on the trampoline. Aislynn was having fun just standing around while her brother jumped and performed "stunts". She soon was done, I got her down and put her sandals back on.

We walked back to the deck and she climbed up. She went to reach up for a patio chair and she froze, dropped to her knees, and then fell straight back. At first I thought that she was playing around, since she is my silly little girl... but I quickly noticed that something wasn't right.

Her eyes were moving in all sorts of directions, and her arms and legs started to convulse. She was making a clicking noise with her mouth and her lips and face quickly started to turn blue. I screamed for MIL to call 911 and I just freaked out. A neighbor came rushing over and we just watched what was going on. I tried to stick my finger in her mouth (which is something that you are totally NOT suppose to do when someone is seizing, but I had no idea!) and her jaw was clamped down.

The seizure ended and I just held her. She was going unconscious and we were desperately trying to wake her up. A police offer showed up at that point, and then the paramedics. She was breathing on her own, but was totally out of it. FIL came home and shortly after Ryan arrived.

My poor baby girl woke up in the ambulance with 6 people over her trying to hook up an IV into her tiny arm. She was so brave! Her vitals were good, and off we went to the hospital in Woodstock.

We were at the hospital from 7PM until 11 PM. They ran blood tests, chest XRAYS and a CT scan. All of the tests came back normal. She was acting like her old silly self toward the last hour that we were there, so they let us go home. We were warned that she could have another seizure, but we were told how to handle it. I'm praying that she won't have another one... And as scary and lifeless as she looked, I was reassured that a seizure is not deadly. Very scary, but not deadly.

We have an EEG scheduled for next Wednesday. The EEG will tell us if she is epileptic. Aislynn also had a check up the next day with her pediatrician. Dr. Lippman didn't find anything abnormal either.

After doing some reading on the Internet and talking with other people, I have found out that seizures in children are very common. Crazy, huh? 1 out of 3 children have a seizure that is caused by a high fever (which she didn't have) and 1 out of 100 kids have epilepsy.

It's a mother's (and father's!) worst nightmare. Since Tuesday afternoon I have sat and thought if there was anything that I did wrong. I'm sure that it's unlikely that I had anything to do with the seizure, but I still question myself. And I have the images of her blue in the face and limp burned in my brain. It's been hard to sleep, hard to focus, and hard not to worry. I'm walking on eggshells trying to protect her from having another, even though that's kind of hard to do since we don't even know how the first one happened.

So until next Wednesday Ryan and I will continue to worry...