Isabella's Hospital Stay

it's been a crazy couple of weeks. tom was out of the country, my mom had just arrived on a weds afternoon to help while he was away. we had put the girls to bed and were sitting on the couch looking at pictures and starting to watch "American Idol". I thought I should go up and check on isabella. i went in to the room to find her having a seizure - a big one. i gave her the "emergency" med we have for her, but she wasn't coming out of the seizure, so i called the neurologist. he sent us to the children's er. i was so thankful my mom was here since it was 10:30p. i grabbed a few things quickly and took isabella to the er. by the time we arrived at the er, she was acting more like herself again. the drs checked her out, put an iv in, and we waited for a room to be admitted to. around 3:30a, we were taken to her room. the nurse asked us more questions, got us settled in the room, and informed me that the lab would be coming around 4 (which by this time was in about 10 minutes) to draw blood. the nurse also let me know that isabella would go for an mri at 6a!. the lab tech came at 4:15a, drew blood, and left. isabella fell asleep not long after that. i fell asleep sitting in the chair next to her bed sometime after 5. at 6, they came to take isabella to radiology for her mri.


i watched my baby get put under anesthesia for the second time in less than 4 months. i cried, and was sent back to the room to wait for her. she was back in about 45 minutes. it took her a long time to wake up, but we couldn't be sent back to her regular room until she did. poor thing, was so sleepy. the neurologist came by to see us. he had the results before we went back to our room, and everything was clear again. thank you, God! we were taken back to isabella's room where she slept for several hours. they were planning to set her up for an eeg that afternoon, but she was completely hysterical the two times they tried. i broke down in tears too. i had never seen her like this. we figured out later that she may have been reacting badly to the anesthesia.

so, i could continue to go into detail about the whole crazy time that we were there, but i will try to summarize here as i don't want to leave you with a novel! not this time, at least!!

isabella ended up staying at the hospital for 6 days. she did end up getting set up for the 48-hour eeg again on saturday (we were admitted on weds). the neurologist had almost sent us home friday afternoon, but izzy had a bad night friday night with what we thought were several seizures. the eeg showed that the seizures are still coming from the right side of her brain. she is still diagnosed with complex partial seizures (a form of epilepsy). the neurologist did not feel that this was a setback and that instead, it's just part of the process in figuring out the right medicine, the right dose. isabella was sent home on two new antiseizure meds and a new backup med for any long or cluster of seizures.

we were so thankful to come home and sleep in our own beds with no interruptions of nurses in the room, the doors slamming next to our room. we were so thankful to the nurses who were so helpful and amazing at making us feel comforted during that time. and, we are praying that these new meds keep isabella seizure-free.