Katelyn's Rough Weekend

Well, this weekend ended up nothing like we were expecting.  We went up north for our oldest niece Ashley's graduation party... which was wonderful.  What a beautiful day we had.  The girls just played and played with their cousins.  Katelyn was particularly attached to little Olivia (3 years) probably cause she can boss her around! haha  Every time we would look over at Katelyn she was eating or drinking something.. open house buffets are right up her alley. 

When we got back to Grandma and Grandpa's house we put Kate to bed about 9pm.  I went into the kitchen about 9:30 and heard a weird noise. At first I thought it was the weather radio going off again, but soon realized it was Katelyn moaning. I thought she had a charlie horse.  When I got in the room though I realized it wasn't, she was having a seizure.  She's never had one before but I recognized it since our last dog Juneau had them before she died about a year ago.  How frightening.  Luckily Grandma Hawley was close as well and she knew what was going on.  The seizure was short we think.. maybe a minute.   But when its your child it seems like forever.  We took her into the closest emergency room which was 30 minutes away in Crosby with the grandparents following.  Katelyn was a little groggy in the car from wanting to sleep but for the most part she was herself. The ER took her vitals, urine and blood which all came back normal.  Katelyn was bouncing off the walls because those three things took 2.5 hours.  The ER doctor contacted Children's in Minneapolis and talked to a pediatric neurologist who said having just one short seizure was not cause for immediate concern, but that we should contact his office on Monday for additional tests.  As terrified as we had been earlier, we almost felt foolish now because we knew there wasn't much they could do at this point. We knew that it would likely be a long time before she had another one, if ever. And there she was smiling and singing Hannah Montana songs in the doctor's office. So back over the river and through the woods to Grandma Hawley's house we went.

We got home pretty late, and Katelyn finally got back to sleep around 1:30. She shared the big bed with mom and dad had to take her spot on the bottom bunk bed!  I kept a hand her body at all time so I would be alerted if anything happened.  Unfortunately around 2am she had another seizure.  This one lasted a lot longer (3-4 minutes) and was extremely difficult to watch.  I was pacing the floors asking is it over is it over while Darin and Grandma Hawley helped Katelyn.  She finally came out of the seizure but was unconscious and very limp. After a minute she "woke up" with her eyes but was still limp and could barely hold herself up in the seat of the van. As we drove she became more alert and after about 20 minutes seemed to be herself again, though tired and a little scared. Darin was so strong during all of this.. I don't know how.. I on the other hand was a wreck with worry and nasty hospital shows going through my head. I just didn't want to loose my little girl.  When we arrived at the ER this time they staff was in a rush. We were told immediately that she would have a CT scan and then be air lifted to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. They told us it may be possible for one parent to ride along on the helicopter.  We decided that Darin would go since he was a bit more emotionally stable than than I was.  We had to wait for the CT technician to be paged and come in for the scan. In the meantime Katelyn threw up, perhaps from the seizure or maybe just being so scared about everything. The results from the CT scan were normal, no tumors or unexpected trauma, which was a relief. We expected the helicopter to be there sooner, but they explained that they needed to know the results of the CT scan before calling them in case they needed to perform surgery first. The airlift team finally arrived and loaded Katelyn up on the stretcher. She looked so small but she wasn't scared... she said she was excited to fly.  The pilots decided against having a parent ride along, for reasons of weight distribution, so after takeoff we headed down with my parents.

Darin drove too fast with the hazard lights on. The directions from the Crosby hospital to the Children's were not great and we ended up taking a couple of pretty major wrong turns. Still, we made the whole trip in just over two hours. Of course, Kate's trip only took about 30 minutes. They did try to call us after she arrived but for some reason my phone didn't pickup the call. Eventually we got through and were able to talk to her, she had apparently been entertaining the nurses and watching Disney channel. By the time we arrived she was zonked out... but not for long. It seemed like doctor after doctor came in and wanted the whole story from the beginning, and then would rouse her to check vitals and to make sure she could move everything ok. Eventually things settled down and she was able to get a few hours of decent sleep. The rest of us though tried somewhat unsuccessfully to nap on the hard floors of the little ER room we were assigned to. Eventually they officially admitted her and we moved up to the 6th floor.

I wish we had time to write up the whole story now, but need to set this aside for a while (actually, Darin is writing this now). Feel free to leave comments or questions, or even add to the story from your perspective. We'll try to get things caught up here and continue to post as we know more. We're waiting now on results from her EEG this morning and her MRI is scheduled for 4pm this afternoon.

Thanks to everyone for their help and prayers.