Bless This Child

Scary day today.  At about 11:30am Taevy stopped doing her math assignment and told me she had a headache.  She took a 200mg ibuprofen and I told her to go back and finish her math.  No breaks from work for a little headache. ;-)  But 30 minutes later she came back in crying, saying she didn't care how much trouble she was going to get into--she had to lay down.  At that point I knew it was a bad headache.  She's had a few of them, including one in January (while visiting a friend) where she threw up.  I figured she might be getting a migraine, made a note to make her a doctor's appointment. 

 

She got worse SO fast.  Within the next 15 minutes she was writhing in pain.  Crying out.  Not about to (or willing to) drink the juice I got her.  Managed to eat a few spoonfuls of spaghetti I spoon fed her.  I knew her school day was shot, and told her to just go to sleep.  But she couldn't sleep.  She was SO in pain--and this is a child who is VERY tough.  I didn't get scared until she started slurring her speech and mixing up her words.  Time for the ER.  I started really running around at the point that she was saying, "Don't forget the...that thing...that round thing we talk on...it's in your bedroom....it's pink."  She was talking about my phone, which is obviously rectangular, and was in the classroom.  FREAK OUT.

 

I gathered a few things as quickly as I could, made sure the kids had shoes on, and drove way too fast to the ER.  Of course there were no parking spots anywhere close to the entrance, so I got to half-drag Taevy half a block, passing people who were looking weird at me dragging this kid with 3 others behind me!  As soon as we walked in we were brought immediately back.  No waiting for this girl.  They could tell she was in distress.

 

She wasn't following their directions very well.  Looked at me and said, "What does SHE want." while the MALE nurse asked her to lift her arm up.  I was glad that they could see her mental confusion and would know I wasn't making it up.

 

Next was the I.V..  Taevy has a severe aversion to needles.  BIGTIME.  She goes into full-on trauma mode.  She starts SCREAMING, "Don't let them do this to me mommy!  No!  NO!  Mommy!"  When she saw I was going to be firm she started jerking away from me and screaming, "Where is my daddy!  Daddy loves me!  SAMREN!  Help me Samren!"  It was A.W.F.U.L.  I have held my children many times through tough blood draws and other medical procedures.  I have never cried before.  But she broke me.  In that moment she felt like I was killing her.  Trauma.  Attachment/trauma problems don't seem to ever fully go away, do they?  It took 3 of us to hold her down while the whole ER wondered what was happening to this child.  Ugh.  After it was in and she was back in her somewhat right mind she said, "That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."  It was way worse than I thought it would be!

 

They got her back to an ER room within 15 minutes, then to CT within the next 20 or so minutes.  While we were in that room she looked at a sign across the wall that said something like, "Please contact a member of our team for assistance."  She said, "Mommy.  I can't...those words don't make sense...what...I can't see it right."  I asked her to read it to me and she said out loud, "Please conduct remember routine for dad."  Poor baby.

 

Thankfully the head CT was negative.  The doc said that was great news but they wouldn't let her go home while she had confused mental status.  It may very well be a migraine, she said, but they needed to rule out other things first.  We had a while longer in that room, waiting for nausea and pain meds to start working.  In the end, it was a good healthy vomit that seemed to help her start turning around.

 

By 3:30 we were admitted to her room in the children's hospital.  By that time her pain level had gone from 9 to 4.  Good progress.  She was starving and we ordered about half the menu for her to eat!  We talked to the docs, one of which is a migraine sufferer.  All of this stuff is just classic "complex migraine" as far as they can tell.  They said they think she might have a more rare form because of the neurological side-effects she has.

 

The plan is to knock her out for around 12 hours, and give her a new dose of toradol every six hours.  Observe for 18 hours.  If the headache goes away, we go home tomorrow.  If for some reason it sticks around we go to "the next level of care" (whatever that is).  We're totally believing it will be gone in the morning.

 

Typical 12 year old that she is, the first thing she wanted to do (besides eat) once her pain level was down was start texting her best friend Naomi. =-) 

 

As of right now the headache is still here, but much better.  She just drank a bit of Jamocha shake (her favorite) while texting.

 

The whole thing is so ironic, as I was planning to go to after-hours care for my own never-ending headache this evening.  Docs said there could be some sort of environmental trigger in our house.  My headache can last another day until she is better. =-)  I have never felt so bad for my beautiful Taevy as I did today.  I don't know if I've ever been more scared for one of my kids.  The neuro stuff really frightened me--didn't know that could be part of a migraine.  Live and learn.

 

So thankful to be in this country where my child doesn't have to suffer and will get the treatment she needs throughout life for this.  So thankful that the Lord allowed her to come into our family where I am privileged to care for her each day.

 

Thank you so very much for your prayers today.  I have absolutely no doubt that Taevy was lifted up by them.  I've been reading the messages to her and she's shocked at how many people care.

 

Love,

Anita