Saturday, April 23, 2011

Maggie

I know it is shocking that I am posting something on my blog, but I thought this was probably the easiest way to keep everyone up to date with Maggie. Some of you know what is going on, but we have been getting a lot of questions. Here is the whole story. This week was book fair week. That means I live at the school. That is where I was on Wednesday morning. I dropped Maggie off at a friends house to play before she went to preschool. She was just fine, and acting as goofy as she always does. She went to school and was having fun and acting completely normal. She planted seeds and after she washed her hands, sat down on the rug for story time. During story time she had a seizure. Her amazing teacher, Miss Jennie, quickly got all the kids into the other room to play before they saw what was going on, called 9-1-1, called another parent to come and watch the other kids, and called me. She had what is called a grand mal, tonic-clonic, or generalized seizure. Those are the more dramatic seizures where their eyes roll back, they have very dramatic muscle spasms, foam at the mouth, you get the picture. As soon as I got Jennie's phone call, at came as quickly as possible. I wasn't worried about getting a speeding ticket. I knew that if the sheriff wasn't already there, he would be going to the same place I was. By the time I got there, she had just finished with her 3rd seizure in a 15 min period. Nelson arrived right after I did. She had never had a seizure before. She had not been sick. She did not have a fever during her seizures. We took her directly to our doctors office. by the time we got to the doctor, Maggie had a fever of 103.6. She also had a blood glucose level of 136, which is high, but not high enough to cause a seizure. The doctor thought that it was probably a febrile seizure and sent told her to get her fever down with ibuprofen and acetaminophen. He also scheduled us to come in on Thursday morning for a 2 hour glucose test. After a couple doses of medicine, her fever was completely gone. Later that day I got o phone call from Primary Children's Hospital Neurology department. They told me that they had talked with our doctor and Maggie was on "fast track" to meet with one of their doctors. They wanted me to call and make an appointment after Maggie's glucose test. Thursday morning, Maggie and I were getting ready to head down to the doctor's office for her 2 hour test when I got a phone call from the doctor. He told me that he had 3 conversations with the neurologists at Primary Children's. They think that Maggie's fever and elevated blood sugar were probably caused by the seizures rather than causing them. He wanted us to do a finger prick glucose test instead of the 2 hour test and then call the neurology department and schedule an appointment. Her blood sugar was at 99. We were able to make an apointment for 8:45 am on Friday. The neurologist thought it was a little concerning that she had 3 clustered together so close. She also wondered if she wasn't fully coming out of the seizures and it was one really long one, which is also concerning. While we were there, Maggie had an EEG to see if they can find any abnormalities. Maggie was so good! She sat so still while they attached 23 wires to her head and tried so hard to fall asleep when they asked her to, even though she couldn't. I need to call the neurlologist on Wednesday to get the results. In the meantime, we get to watch Maggie closely. She needds to have someone with her all the time. This has been really hard for her. She is a very independent child. We have to be really careful if she takes a bath, and it is strongly encouraged to have her only take showers. They also sent us home with nasal Versed to administer if she has another seizure that lasts more that 5 minutes. Now we just wait. Hopefully they won't find anything. But if they do, It will be nice to at least have an answer. Needless to say, this has been a REALLY long week and I am very glad that it is Saturday. Book fair is over, and we are done with all the doctor visits. I am looking forward to just resting today because I am exhausted! Thanks for all your prayers. I will let you know if and when we have any answers.