1st Ambulance Ride

So, I don't particulary care to remember this event, but Nathan would really like me to write about last Monday. Probably because now he talks about it in an almost boastful, I survived, I'm tough kind of way.

He didn't look so tough though when I first saw him, as he was being wheeled into the ambulance at his school. I was strapped down on a spinal decompression table at my chiropractor as my phone started ringing like crazy. Ken and the staff at Nathan's elementary school were calling me non-stop because Nathan had 3 seizures at school and was unconscious.

Ken and the girls rushed to the school from our house and got to the school in time to see the EMT's rouse him. I was able to get there just in time to ride in the ambulance with him. It was so hard to see my baby like that, but so much eaiser then driving to his school with crazy thoughts running through my head. At least I could be with him and touch him. They had immobilized him because the first seizure made him hit is head on the brick wall and on the ground as he collapsed.

Nathan has never had a seizure before. It was very frightening. The ambulance took him to the local Children's Hospital downtown. He was pretty responsive most of the ride except for once when his heart rate dropped and his eyes started to roll back. But he recovered pretty fast.

At the hospital they checked him out and were able to unstrap him. They did a CAT Scan, EKG, and a bunch of blood work. It was a nervewracking 5 hours but all of his tests came back normal. The alarm going off for his heartrate added to the tension of the day. Nathan's normal resting heart rate is around 40 bpm. That's pretty low. They kept testing him and his blood pressure too, making him lay down, sit up, and stand. When he is active his heartrate gets up around 70 which one of the nurses told me is usually what they expect most children's resting rate to be. But Nathan is very physically fit, he loves to run and move, so they said it wasn't unusual to see it so low.

After everything initially checked out fine they discharged him with orders to see a pediatric cardiologist and nuroligist before engaging in any physical activity. Pretty funny, considering Nathan rarely sits still. Plus, we were planning on leaving for our vacation the next night to drive to Houston, with a hard deadline of Wednesday morning with our airplane tickets to Cancun.

Granted at the time, our vacation was the furthest thing from Ken and I's mind. Nathan was practically in tears thinking he wouldn't be able to go, but we could care less if we went or not. I seriously would have given anything to make him well.

Ken furiouslessly started calling pediatric specialists as soon as we heard Nathan would be discharged. He was able to get him into the pediatric cardiologist first thing in the morning. Well, actually he was able to get Nathan in to see the tech's to get another EKG and echocardiogram and if everything checkedout we wouldn't see the Dr. So imagine how scared I was when they told me the Dr. wanted us to wait and see him. Thankfully everything was fine with Nathan's heart which was everyone's main concern. The cardiologist actually thinks Nathan may have had a fainting spell because he was coming in from recess, and thought it may have looked like seizures but it really wasn't. Either way he gave Nathan the all clear to travel if he promised to drink 12 oz. of electrolytes every hour at the beach.

Getting into the nurologist was more of problem. I am so thankful for my husband who called practically every hour to bug someone; Nathan's pediatrician, the follow-up lady from the ER, or the nurologists office. He pressed on everyone to find an empty EEG tech to do the nuro test on Nathan so that way the nurologist could consult with us. By the end of the day everyone knew Nathan's whole situation from memory and they were so nice and helpful. We ended up taking the last slot available and Nathan was able to get the test done. The nurologist's nurse was able to see his test results practically live and got the nurologist to read them immediately. It was amazing, I really felt so blessed to know that everyone cared about Nathan so much and that Ken was able to get us what we needed and still have everyone like us:-)

It turns out his EEG was normal too. Which the nurologist wanted to make sure we knew that this doesn't mean he won't have another seizure but until he has a 2nd episode there was nothing else to do and Nathan was cleared for travel from him too.

We are so thankful that they were not able to find anything wrong with Nathan!