Unadulterated Fear

It all started the morning of September 9th.  It was Layla's 4th birthday.  We woke up and everyone was happy.  We talked to my sister, my parents, and the Trenda's on Skype that morning.  ellie was as happy as could be.  She had lots of energy, was laughing, and moving around like crazy.  Then it all went downhill.  It was about 9:15am and I was talking to Bridget on skype.  I was holding ellie in my arms and I noticed that she was slouching and just staring off at a piece of fabric with a flower pattern on it.  I thought it was an odd behavior for her, but it was her nap time so I thought she was just dozing off.  So I laid her in her crib and continued to talk to Bridget.  About a minute later I looked into ellie's crib just to check on her and she was sitting up in the corner, looking to one side and vomitting.  She was not making a sound.  I panicked!  I quickly picked her up and starting talking to her, but she would not respond to me.  I thought maybe she was choking, but her lips were not blue and she was breathing.  I had no idea what was going on.  She would not look at me or respond to me.  It was like she was not there.  I raced outside and screamed for Jack to come to the house.  He, and all our other workers, came racing down to the house.  He took her from me and was trying to assess what was going on with her.  I was a reck, I was balling and basically just freaking out.  She was still throwing up during this time period.  Jack looked her over for a little bit and was trying to get her to respond to him but she wouldn't. Her eyes were looking to the side and slightly moving back and forth. everything in me was telling me that she was having a siezure and that we needed to get her to the doctor.  So we grabbed what we could and started running down the hill.

Of course, because of our luck, our car was parked all the way down the hill by the main road.  They were doing some construction on the road so we were not able to bring our car up to our house.  We had to park pretty far away from our house for a few days.  So we basically just booked it down to the car. Jack was carrying her this whole time.  He noticed that she started responding a little bit to him, like crying and making some movements but she still wouldn't look at him or anything.  So we got to our car and sped down to White Beach where the clinic is (about 3-4 km from our house).  The doctor quickly assessed her there and said that her pupils were unreactive to light and that we needed to get her to the hospital.  So we jumped back in our car and again sped off. 

The closest hospital to us is between 1 1/2 to 2 hours away.  elsie (our national director) was driving the car and he got there in 1 hour.  He was driving crazy but I was glad.  I was a mess this whole time.  During the trip Jack was holding her and she was sleeping.  But about 45 min into the trip she started to get real fussy and wouldn't calm down.  She still wouldn't look at me or respond to me when I spoke to her.  I thought maybe she was hungry so I nursed her.  She actually ate a little and it calmed her for a little while, but then I couldn't calm her anymore.  She seemed to be in so much pain.

So Jack took her back from me and she went silent.  She started to have another siezure.  She began throwing up again and postulating herself to one side.  I actually didn't know this was happening at the time because I was in the seat behind Jack and I couldn't see her.  All I could think during the whole drive to the hospital is, "am I ever going to get my ellie back?"  It was like she checked out.  Almost like she couldn't see or hear me.  I kept worrying that she is going to have permanent brain damage and that she will have siezures for the rest of her life.  Watching her go through this was one of the top horrifying moments of my life.  Being so helpless as a parent...just watching my baby suffer was excruciatingly painful.  I was praying my heart and soul out for her, I knew that was all I could do for her!