What a whirlwind its been the past few days! I need to record it while its fresh in the mind though. It all started the morning of Jan 23rd. He was really fussy after his morning nap that day, was he was in the bouncy seat after I nursed him. He gave me a couple strange faces, ones I hadn’t really seen before. I didn’t think much of it, being that he just seemed a bit grumpy. Looked tired a little dazed. I left for a minute, just stepped into the kitchen for seriously a minute. Then I looked and noticed that the bouncy seat had stopped moving. Gideon wasn’t responding to me saying his name or bouncing him. Looked like he fell asleep. I picked him up and he seemed very lethargic and tired acting. Just wasn’t right. I frantically called Brian and asked him to come home, that something wasn’t right with Gideon. He got home and we both sorta figured maybe he was just tired since he had been up in the night for 20 mins (and normally he sleeps through the night). I nursed him and he went RIGHT to sleep. He woke at 2:30 PM and I fed him a little and he fell back to sleep in his swing for the rest of his nap. When he woke he was still fussy and not himself.

When I got back from going to dinner with Mom I gave him a little bath, he loved it. Gave him a little Tylenol thinking his throat might be hurting. Made an appt for him to see Dr. Gold in the morning (24th). No fever.
Later at 5:30
I sat him up to burp after feeding him, he went when limp his eyes were glossy, and around the mouth turned blue and seemed like he quit breathing. He kinda firmed up a little. It was the scariest thing ever!! Brian said “lets go to urgent care”. I told him we needed to call 911, that something was really wrong!! I was pretty hysterical. Told Gregory to go get Grandma. He ran down to my Mom’s house and was speechless. He finally got out the word “Gideon”. She got to the house pretty quick. The 911 lady told Brian that I needed to calm down. I didn’t know if i needed to do CPR or what. He came around after about 2 mins. It’s all a blur now and as I look back seemed like it took FOREVER for the paramedics to get here. Brian said they were here within a minute or two. We have never had that many guys in our living room at one time. They looked him over quickly and we were out the door to the ER. I rode with little Gideon in the ambulance. After we got there he had another seizure as the nurses were trying to get an IV in him. Took them forever to find a good vein to put it in. They ran a lot of tests (blood work, CT scan, spinal tap, and an xray) and everything came back normal. As we went in to get the CT scan done, Gideon had another seizure while I was holding him. Both the ones in the ER lasted about a minute. Hardest thing to go through, there was nothing I could do for him. He didn’t have to be sedated for the CT scan or the spinal tap since he was sooooo tired from the seizures.  In his IV he was given antibiotics and fluids. They say its like running an marathon and they are very tired after they go through it and just need to sleep.

He was so tired in the ER.  It was very sad to see him like this. I was glad to have my cell phone to get a few pictures, and be able to update the family and prayer warriors on his condition.

We were thankful that they didn’t have to put him to sleep to do the CT scan and spinal tap

A few smiley moments with the little guy

The paramedics finally arrived at Santa Paula and we left with them around 1:30 AM Jan 24th.  We were headed to Ventura County hospital where they had a room ready for us.  I sat with Gideon on the gurney and rode in the ambulance.  He was very smiley and talkative to the paramedic for a while, then he dozed off before we got to the County hospital.   We got settled in our room and there they hooked him up to the drip again and gave him more antibiotics and started him on Kepra to prevent seizures. They put him in his little hospital gown and also hooked him up to the heart rate monitor as well.  We had cords everywhere! It was a pain to hold and nurse him with all the cords!

We were sooo thankful for that thumb!! Boy were we! He needed that for comfort a lot!

We found out later that his spinal tap did show a few more white cells than normal.  Normal ranges is 3-5 or lower.  He had 7.  Cases with meningitis show white blood cell counts in the thousands.  Meningitis is one of the illnesses they were trying to rule out.  However he didn’t show any of the other signs.  Herpes is another illness they wanted to rule out and we won’t have the final results until next week.  The neurologist said that his EKG and EEG came back normal.  I forget the name of what he said he thought Gideon s seizures where.  Basically it was in the category of not knowing what caused it.  Could be just from him being a little ill.  For now he’s on Kepra to help prevent the seizures.  The neurologist also mentioned that only about 5 percent of all kids will ever have a seizure in their lives and also about 75-80 percent of kids who experience a seizure will eventually “grow out” of them and go on living a normal life.

Getting ready for the EEG brain test.

Brian’s “bed”.  I had a lovely chair that is sort of like a dentist chair.

While in the hospital Gideon nursed a lot more than normal.  He was fussy a lot and so I fed him to comfort him.  I stayed pretty hungry and needed to eat a lot more.  I’m guessing because he was eating more.  It was a strange feeling! We didn’t sleep hardly at all.  Hard to sleep in a chair.  Gideon only slept on me too and occasionally in the bouncy seat.

One of our nurses tending to Gideon.

We opted to leave the hospital before getting the final results of the tests for meningitis and herpes (which is very Unlikely he has). However, we are praying that those come back negative for sure.  For now we are keeping a close watch on him and we are all soooooo happy to get home.  I’m ready for a good WHOLE nights sleep.  The boys were all excited to see us home.  I’ve never seen Luke so excited to see us and Gideon.  I want to thank my parents for helping out with the boys, Levi for getting them to school and home from school, Donna for coming out today and tending to Luke, Mike and Brenda for visiting us in the hospital, and Viktor for getting Adam today and most of all all the prayers that you all prayed! Our God is awesome and he helped us through this and will continue to do so! Glory to God in the highest!

So glad for his bouncy seat.  He napped in it some.  They gave him this cute motorcycle blanket to take home.