Monday, July 26, 2010

Panic

 It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring.  He went to bed and bumped his head and he couldn't get up in the morning...

Do you remember singing that little diddy as a child?

I don't know to whom that song was referring when it was originally written, but now that song is about Ryan, for us at least.

Very early Sunday morning, he was snoring, so I kicked him gave him the universal sign to roll over (don't judge me, you know you do it, too) and as he rolled over, he fell out of the bed, hit his head on a desk and landed on the floor.  He's fallen out of bed before (granted, I was eight months pregnant at the time and took up the entire bed), but this time he hit his head on the way down and yelled.  I ran over to his side of the bed and he was having a seizure, as in a whole body convulsing, biting his tongue, cannot hear or respond seizure.

After a minute or so the seizure subsided and he rolled onto his back and began snoring again.  But this time, it was a very heavy snoring and no amount of yelling at him or shaking him would wake him up.  I immediately called 911 and begged for some help.  About seven or eight minutes later, I could hear the siren approaching and Ryan began to wake up.  His speech was slurred and he was very confused seeing as he had no idea why he was lying on the floor half under the computer desk.

Both a fire truck and an ambulance arrived carrying about ten people, all of whom came in the house and into our bedroom, a bedroom I might that is not made for ten people to stand in.  They made sure that he hadn't hurt his neck and helped him up on to the bed for further evaluation.  After asking me about two dozen questions they loaded him onto a gurney (thankfully putting a shirt on him) and took him to the awaiting ambulance.

Six hours, one blood test, one urinalysis, one cat scan, and two i.v.'s later, he was released with a prescription for an anti-seizure medicine, a referral to a neurologist and orders to get more sleep and drink no alcohol until he's been cleared by the neurologist.

If you ask him, he'll tell you that the only thing he remembers is being loaded into the ambulance and he's still kind of fuzzy on all the details between getting to the hospital and leaving it.

To say I was scared would be the understatement of the year.  Amazingly, my usual reaction of crying was not to be and I calmly talked to both the 911 operator and the paramedics (and Ryan once he was coherent) without crying.  It wasn't until I called my parents to come watch the kids that I lost it.

I'm so thankful that Ryan is OK.  We have an appointment for later in the week with the neurologist, but other than a headache, he's feeling fine.

I'm thankful for the 911 operator who kept me talking and calm.  I'm thankful for all ten paramedics who took care of him, didn't say a word about my dusty and messy bedroom and didn't comment on my completely mismatched (and bra-less) pajamas.  I'm thankful that Ryan wears underwear to bed.

I'm thankful for my parents who dropped everything and drove an hour to stay with the kids.  I'm thankful the kids didn't wake up during any of it.

And most of all, I'm thankful to everyone (via Facebook and elsewhere) who stopped and said a prayer for Ryan.  It's times like this when you can truly feel the power of prayer and the wonders that it can work.

5 comments:

  1. How scary! I'll be praying for him.

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  2. Isn't it amazing how calm you can be when you have to be? I hope this was just a one time thing and Ryan will be back to normal for the rest of time. (and I think I am glad too that he wears underwear to bed LOL!!)

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  3. Holy Moly! I bet you'll be letting him snore from now on, amirite?

    Seriously, we're praying for both of you. I hope this was just a freak occurrence and never happens again.

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  4. Oh Jana, that would be so scary! I am so glad he seems to be okay! I'll be praying that this was a freak accident and nothing further develops... And that everything stays calm in your house for awhile now so you can relax. These things take a while to recover from mentally, in my experience.

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  5. Tien said...

    How scary! Thank goodness you are not a heavy sleeper, thank goodness his snoring woke you up, and thank goodness you remained calm when you needed to. You saved his life! I'm so glad to hear that he is fine and that this was an isolated incident.

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