eventful days

It has been an eventful couple of weeks with me having gone to Alaska and then Micah had a short hospital stay at Arkansas Children's.  I'll get to the Alaska trip later and post some pictures though my selection of pictures is quite pitiful compared to some others took on our trip. 

Probably most who read this are aware that we had a slightly scary situation with Micah week before last, but I will recap for those who didn't know about it.  Wayne went into his room to wake him up that Thursday morning for school and found him unresponsive with a large amount of drool and mucus on his bed.  He brought him to the couch and came to get me.  He was convulsing and seemed like he was having a hard time breathing.  Since we live close to the hospital, Wayne took him to the ER and I stayed here with Gabriel.  We expected that he would be there for a few hours and then come home.  He had 2 grand mal seizures and had a third once he got to the hospital.  Since he had never had those, they wanted to be super cautious and send him to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock.  He and Wayne went by helicopter and I made arrangements for Gabriel to be taken care of for the day, packed, and headed to Little Rock.  Thankfully, Wayne's parents were able to come over and take care of Gabriel later in the day and for the next two days.

The hospital here in Ft. Smith originally thought he had pneumonia but it turned out that wasn't the case.  He was sick all that day, possibly from the helicopter ride.  I was so glad my parents were able to come to the hospital and were with us until Micah was discharged on Saturday.  By Thurs. night Micah was happy and at the same time annoyed by all the wires attached to him.  It was a fight to try and keep everything attached.  He was so happy to see Nana and Paw Paw.  Wayne stayed with him both Thurs. and Fri. nights in the hospital room.  At six years old, a lot of times he is too strong for me to handle when he gets upset or rambunctious.  I am thankful he has a Daddy who is big and strong!

Friday afternoon Micah had an MRI to try and determine if there had been any changes to the growths in his brain, which might have explained a new kind of seizures and some of the behaviors we have seen.  But, no.  The MRI revealed no changes at all and no explanation for the seizures.  Sometimes kids with Tuberous Sclerosis can develop new types of seizures as they get older.  Now we have medication to take with us wherever we are so that if he has one of the grand mal seizures we can adminster that to stop it.  Micah also had his eyes checked for tubers around and on the eye nerves (he hadn't had his eyes checked since we lived in CA) and they were completely fine.

By Friday night Micah was back to normal and really ready to be out of his hospital bed and it was a huge effort by Wayne, myself, and my parents to keep him there.  He was upset, frustrated, crying, kicking, trying to jump out of bed, pulling at his IV, etc.  He finally settled down around 10 pm and slept through the night.  If the doctor hadn't offered to discharge him on Sat. morn, I think we would have begged!

We are thankful that what started out as a scary situation turned out to be just fine.  I'm so thankful for parents/grandparents who are willing to help us and be with us during unexpected times when we need them.  We also thank all of you who prayed for Micah.