Gracie and the Amazing Ambulance Ride

Well, you may or may not have heard yet, but we had an adventure yesterday! All is well now and we are off to the pediatrician....

At 7am yesterday morning, I heard Grace cough and I went to get her out of her crib. She had spit up a little, and I got her up. She seemed fine if not a bit sleepy. I took her in the bathroom and she indicated she was thirsty, but wouldn't take a drink. So I took her back to bed with me.

At 10am we were in the car getting ready to go to school and as I buckled Thomas in, I noticed that Grace, who had never fully woken up again (even as I got her dressed), was starring at me, vacantly, and vomiting clear liquid.

I ran around and unbuckled her, and her face was pale and lips very blue. She had stopped getting sick, this only last a few secondly probably, but you know how fast you move at times like this, and I noticed that she was chewing on her tongue.

Instinctively, I figured she had probably gotten hold of a toy and was choking, so I put my finger in her mouth and tried to get it open. She gave me the oddest look, as if trying to figure something out, and chewed on my finger. It was like, "is this right?"

I pulled her out of her seat and she relaxed and started to fall asleep.

I called Mom and she came right over. We spent a few minutes trying to get her awake and she would come to for short periods, but then go back to sleep.

Finally I took her to the ER at Baptist East in the car. I had to stop and get gas on the way there, because I was below empty! Mom took Thomas to school, and Sam had to stay at the house because we had people on the way to work on our house!

Grace and I went to Baptist East, She slept the whole way there, where I have found they address you much more quickly when you first walk in the door with a little kid. At Kosair, everyone who walks in the front door has a little one in their arms in dire need of help.

We got seen reasonably quickly, about 10 min. And then she fell asleep fairly soon again thereafter.

Here I had asked Grace, "Where is Grace's Nose? Where is Grace's Eyes?"

And She correctly found them, this is long before she had come out of her "state" she was in.

They did blood work, and her blood sugar only came up 47! So, they gave her some Glucose, and it shot up so high it read, "Critically High" so they waited 10 minutes and re-read it. It then read, 563! (That's really high, if you aren't familiar with blood sugar issues...)

When they first gave her the Glucose she woke up and came to completely. She stood up and looked at Mom and I, and said, "I Down!" "I Go!" and fussed at the male nurse for messing with her IV. This was especially amazing since she didn't even wake when they put the IV in!

But shortly after they gave her the Glucose, maybe 5 minutes, she got very nauseated and passed out again. After about 10 minutes, the main Physician came in and used an ammonia capsule to wake her up. She came right out of it fighting but fell asleep again.

Between the time they had first taken the blood (so before we knew how low it was) and when they gave her the Glucose, they took us back for a CT Scan of her head, which she totally slept through. And then a chest X-ray, which she woke up enough to sit up and look around very confused, while I held her still. I think she thought this was all a dream.

Finally, around 1pm they took a urine sample, just to be sure, as everything else had come back perfectly normal, including the CT Scan, the Chest X-ray, etc. Everything except for the blood sugar and her white blood cells being elevated, which all supported the idea she had possibly had an early morning seizure. This last test brought her up out of her deep sleep though, and she was ready to play!

By 1:15, she woke up and started playing with toys, as if nothing had ever happened. "Bubbles" she would say. And pretend to blow bubbles to her dolls. She would wave to all the nurses and lean way over sideways around her curtain to yell, "Hieeee!" at doctors and nurses who were trying to work at the station outside.

Her primary male nurse, Mom told me later, came in after one of these, 'greetings' and said to her, "I don't think we've met." which he had been working on her all day, but never had seen her conscious like this before, "It's nice to meet you." and she offered him a baby doll!

Everyone could instantly tell the difference.

Dr. Maurer asked us to go on down to Kosair for observation.

Here is Grace getting ready for take off! When we were in the Ambulance, she would yell, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Whenever it would hit a bump! The man on the right here thought that was hilarious!

The Kosair Ambulance team showed up at 2:45 and strapped her into her car seat on the stretcher. We sat in a little ER room, an hour and a half of which Grace took her regular afternoon nap (Mommy wishes she could have at that point) while I ran down to McDonald's for breakfast at 4pm! Then at 6pm we were released to go home. By 6:30pm we were headed home to Mimi's house, where I did crash for a very long nap!

These were taken of Grace at Kosair where Mimi played with her for 3 or 4 hours in our room where they left us with no toys, no food, no drinks, a tv that was not on, literally nothing to do, but Mimi saved the day. Here Grace and Mimi sing into the "Microphone", which is the un-used oxygen meter they still had attached on her toe!

Everything turned out ok, they said she had probably had a seizure at the 7am time and that's what I had heard. Everything else I observed was probably follow up behavior to that seizure. Some people will sleep for 3 to 4 hours after a seizure!

If all else goes according to our hopes and prayers, we'll never hear another thing from any of this. If not, and she would happen to have another, we are supposed to take her back to the ER, and we'll run more tests. God can handle it. I figured that out, yet again, yesterday.

Gracie is totally recovered and herself again today! Here she is this evening with Mimi and Gannie in the backyard watching the boys playing!

MJ