Seizures and hospitals

My poor little guy has had a ROUGH month, to say the least. Thursday he had a followup appt with his neurologist. He wanted to knwo how Jayden had been doing on the new medication combo. In my opinion, he had been doing well b/c instead of seizures every 2 weeks, he actually went 6 weeks without one and when he had one it was pretty mild. But then he had a really bad one at school, so that was a concern for the Dr. He also believes Jayden may be having seizures in his sleep b/c Jayden sleeps ALOT (4-5 hour naps and 12 hours at night) and if we wake him up out of his sleep he's very lethargic, cranky, and disoriented. So his night time seizure meds were increased. The ironic thing is that when the nurse took his vitals Jayden's temp was 101. He wasn't as active as usual, but he wasn't acting really sick either. But when we got home it was a different story. He was grabbing his neck and crying all night about the pain. I looked in his throat and saw small white spots and his breath had a bad smell. I knew he had strep. Thursday night his temp stayed high, even with Motrin. Of course the Drs offices were closed on Good Friday, so Thursday night I called the on call nurse. The nurse was pretty rude, telling me that these symptoms just set on so I need to give it time to let his body work, to take his clothes off, and that a high fever won't hurt him. That's where I had to cut her off. I told her he has a seizure disorder and a high fever could definitely hurt him. So then she says "Well all offices are already closed and they will be closed tomorrow. He can't have his throat swabbed over the phone and the Dr will not call in an antibiotic without seeing him first." Ok, wow. She was rude. So I simply asked her if there was an Urgent Care center in the area and she told me no. So we toughed it out. Tylenol/Motirn around the clock. He slept in bed with us b/c the fever kept shooting up so high and we worried about seizures. Friday morning I gave him the fever reducers and by the afternoon. after a nap, he seemed better. But by Friday night he was shivering yet burning up. I gave him more meds and we went to bed. At 2 am, my husband woke me up saying Jayden was burning up. I took his temp and it was 104. We took the blankets off of him, as much as he protested b/c he was cold, and just watched him. At 8 am I called the Drs office and got him an appt to go in. He most certainly had strep throat and bronchitis. The Dr gave him a penicillin injection and made us stay for 20 minutes to make sure there was no reaction. He told us that the shot would knock the infection out really fast so Jayden should be like a different child that afternoon. Good news! We were ready for him to feel better.

But it didn't quite work out that way...We got home and put Jayden in our bed. He asked to eat and I was so excited b/c he hadn't eaten a thing AT ALL since Wednesday night. I warmed him a hot dog and took it to him in the bed. I tried to feed it to him and he said no and put his head back on the pillow. I sat the bowl aside and he started screaming. A very high pitched scream. I tried to pull him up into my arms but his body was so tensed and being pushed into the bed, I couldn't get him up. My husband pulled Jayden's thumb out of his mouth b/c he was biting down. I finally was able to get him in my arms, and it felt like forever, and he continue to tense up and seize for about 45 seconds. Then he relaxed and closed his eyes, the typical postictal state. But just as soon as he relaxed, he screamed again. Another seizure. Much shorter than the first though. And this time he immediately passed out, which is also a typical postictal state as long as he's breathing, and he was. I held on to him for a while and talked to my mom. I told her I wasn't worried, even though this was the scariest one since the Thanksgiving Day seizure b/c he nearly bit his thumb off and I felt helpless. But he was asleep now and Jayden always feels better after a nap when he has a seizure. So he napped, and we napped. I woke up and did some house work and Jayden stayed asleep. Close to 5 and 1/2 hours. I woke him up to see how he was feeling and it was odd that he was still in the postictal state. This is never the norm for Jayden. Usually after a nap, it's as if nothing happened, but not this time. I didn't panic though b/c I also knew that he hadn't been feeling well so he must have been exhausted. I let him stay in our bed and turned on the cartoons. His temp was back to normal, 98.4. I called my mom and I said "I'M BORED!!! Come over and watch movies!" So we were trying to figure out what movies we would watch when Jayden screamed again. It was quick though. He screamed, tensed up, and then turned around and said "MOMMY HELP!!" I held him and he immediately fell asleep again. My mom told me to bring him to the hospital b/c by this time he'd had 3 seizures and was not recovering from them. I was getting dressed and he had another one. He remained disoriented on the ride to the hospital. We got there and they took him straight back where he just layed on the cot. He was also still experiencing dizzy spells and wouldn't allow anyone to move him without him screaming. The ER Dr came in and as she was examining him he had another seizure. She left the room to contact Jayden's neurologist. They gave him a huge dose of Keppra!!, the drug that we despise b/c of how emotional and hyper it makes Jayden, but I really didn't mind as long as it would help him. Then the ER Dr came back in and said that Jayden would need to be admitted. At this point, the seizures were no longer the concern b/c they were so short. The concern was the fact that he could not come out of the postictal state. We got to his room and they had to bring in oxygen tanks and other scary stuff, just in case. Jayden slept peacefully all night, with no seizures. He woke up the next morning, and was very quiet so I was worried, but soon enough he said "Juice" "On" (for the TV) and "GiGi" (his favorite person!). His vitals remained satisfactoryand the Drs concluded that Jayden was having so many seizures b/c his body was working really hard for the past 3 days to fight off the infection and once the penicillan kicked in, his body reacted to not having to fight so hard so suddenly. They didn't think it was a reaction to the penicillin, but they still wanted to watch him at least until lunchtime and to give him another dose of Keppra!!. So we all hung out in the room. My mom brought him an Easter basket and pretty soon Jayden was up playing around and making us laugh. His gait was still very unstable, but the Dr thinks it was from the Keppra!! and not b/c of the seizures, which was a relief b/c with the last seizure he had, he couldn't walk at all for about 4 hours. So we were staring at the clock, anxious to get discharged and then Jayden screams and had another seizure. Went straight to sleep. We had to report this to the nurse and of course we didn't get discharged at lunchtime. The good thing, though, is that after that nap, Jayden recovered and was bright and alert. So they monitored him for another 3 hours or so and told us that they would discharge him as long as we felt comfortable and knew when to bring him back in to the hospital. The neurologist had them to write an increase on his current seizure medications and I can't wait to see him next week so I can hug him for not sending Jayden home on that Keppra!! drug that we hate so much! LOL!

This morning, Jayden does have a fever of 100.8, but I gave him some Tylenol and he's lying down watching television. I'm hoping that he is on the road to recovery now b/c this has been a whirlwind of a weekend for us!