Not the Kind of Post I Wanted to Write

I was truly looking forward to doing a really good update, because I've been so behind on everything not school related. Unfortunately, I'm forced to punch out this lame excuse for a post (that I will need to finish later, because I should be studying for my Ethics final exam, which is tomorrow).

Ari had a seizure on Tuesday afternoon. Long story short(ened), Ari was up all night on Monday crying hysterically for seemingly no reason. We thought she was nauseous, because she did end up throwing up once when I tried to give her some children's Ibuprofin. Jake and I kept worrying that she was going to have a seizure (don't ask me why... instinct perhaps?), so we let her sleep in bed with us for the first time in her life. I took her to the doctor on Tuesday for her coincidentally already scheduled and long overdue well-check appointment. She was running a slight fever of about 101.5 (that's low grade for Ari), and Dr. Sudha diagnosed her with a double ear infection and gave us an Rx for some oral antibiotics. Anyway, I gave her a sucker and then she went quiet. Too quiet. She had been crying all day, so I attributed it to her utter fatigue. I gave her her first dose of ammoxicillin and plopped her on the couch to watch her movie. Then, I stepped into the office to print off my recipe for dinner, and while in there, heard an all-too-familiar sound of staggered breathing. I screamed for Jake to call 911, and then ran into the family room, hoping desperately not to see what I knew I would: Ari seizing madly and having thrown up all over herself.

The paramedics got there as I was packing Ari's hospital bag, and Jake was there with them. They gave Ari Valium instead of Versed, which never works for Ari. They had no way of knowing that, but it still messed us up in the long run. In the ambulance, they finally got the Versed into her, and she stopped seizing. Her seizure lasted about 12 minutes. This is long. They made us go to Gilbert Mercy Hospital, because she was not stable when we left our house and they wanted to get her somewhere quickly to stop the seizure. Gilbert was, all in all, not a horrible experience, but we requested a transfer as soon as Ari was stabilized, which took a while to do. After we arrived, she started seizing again. This time, it was very slight and was only detectable by a slight twitching of the eyes. Thank goodness Marci was there to notice it. So, they naturally had no choice but to give Ari more sedation. This time, it was Atavan. Sound like too many drugs for such a little girl? That's because it was. Ari needed to be intubated and put on a ventilator to breathe for her, because her respiration would be so severely depressed from the sedatives. This was horrible, albiet necessary. She got a CT scan of her head, because we were concerned that her head bonk on Saturday night could be to blame for her seizure. Thank goodness, the CT didn't show anything new or acute, and we were absolved of that load of lifetime guilt. She got a chest XRay, and as it turns out, a double ear infection and seizure wasn't the half of it. The poor girl also had pneumonia. After that, Ari was flown via helicopter to Banner Desert PICU.

It was about 10 pm when she was registered in the PICU. Still on a vent and a drip to keep her sedated. I forgot the names of the drugs from here on out. Can you believe it? Evidence that I'm really losing my mind! My aim: get Ari off the vent, extubated, drinking, eating, sleeping, antibiotics to get her healthy again, and to GET OUT. The doctors' aim: make one baby step decision in that direction every 12 hour shift. Basically, no more than one move could be made per round, and they were literally absent between rounds unless I stalked them down. So, a mommy's gottado what a mommy's gottado. I was pretty pushy, but a (relatively) healthy Ari was discharged on Wednesday night at 8 PM. She probably would've been in there until Friday if I had allowed us to creep along at the snail's pace the doctors preferred. In any case, she's home now, sleeping soundly in her bed. Under the watchful ear/eye of two baby monitors.

I am an exhausted, anxious, bitter, fearful, angry, helpless mess. I am shaking my fist in the air as I type this. I held it together pretty well the entire time we were in the hospital... I mean, considering I had to witness my baby as she went from a violently convulsing puppet to a limp, unconscious body on life support; to a tortured, gagging, coughing, vomiting little girl waking up from unconsciousness at 2 AM to find a tube in her throat, two IV's in her arms, wires all over her body, and restraints tying her arms and legs to the bed. Considering all that, I guess you could say I stayed pretty level-headed. But, don't let that fool you. Because now, I'm definitely not that. And I don't want to pretend to be anymore either. I am PISSED OFF. Don't worry, I'm not pissed at you or the doctors or nurses or anyone in particular. Although I'd love to be. It would be so much easier and less confictive if I could blame someone other than GOD for what's happening to Ari. I find no solice in the message that this is happening for a reason or anything attempting to be reassuring right now. And I apologize if this is a disappointment or if I'm warranting the status of a fallen hero or something. But I really don't want to be an inspiration right now. This isn't that blog. Not today. Nope. I'm the girl that's issuing a warning: God, if you take Ari from me or if you hurt her much more than this, I will not survive it nor will I want to. No, in fact, if you take her from me, we're not going to be friends anymore. So don't do it!