Ammon's first seizures at home

Ammon is back to his high energy and playful grins tonight but Friday we experienced our first seizures with him and ended up spending the afternoon and night in the emergency room.

We knew that if Ammon indeed has a seizure disorder that we would be seeing one relatively soon as we are needing to wean him off his current meds that he's been on in China as they don't give that medication to children here in the US. They do give it to adults in the US but to treat Bi-polar Disorder, not seizures.

I have now been initiated into the world of "seizure management". We were shopping at Wal-Mart on Friday afternoon with Ammon and Lan. Ammon slumped over and I thought maybe he had fallen asleep but when I took his head in my hands his look was just "off". I gathered him in my arms and I could feel him shaking. There was no jerking, just shaking. I held him until he opened his eyes and when he did they seemed to be stuck looking towards the right. Then he vomited. I took him home and put him on our bed where my husband held him while I called the doctor as we had planned when we started weaning his meds. The doctor told us to continue watching him. Ammon once again vomited and then had another seizure, followed by another and then another. By now the eyes had started ticking, the mouth had drawn down and began salivating and his right arm and leg had starting to twitch and jerk. The doctor advised us to take him directly to the emergency room and that we did.

As I sat with him in my arms waiting for the doctors to come get us from the Waiting Room, I looked into his contorted face and then his ticking eyes that held no recognition for anything occurring around him I asked myself, "Here we are. Are you really ready for this?" And I never felt more certain that our decision to adopt him was right. Oh, how this boy deserved and needed a family! How blessed we are to be able to help him. His tiny right hand gripped mine tightly and would not let go as it jerked and convulsed. How could I not be right there for him? All my Mama Bear instincts wanted to hold on to him as tightly as I could an give him every chance to get help. Through my thoughts kept running, "How many times has this happened to you without a hospital down the street? Have you had to endure these alone? I'm sure you have. That will never happen again my son. We will ride this thing with you at every step Little Goober".

We were called into a room and they quickly put oxygen on him and hooked him up to vitals. Amazingly the seizures stopped as soon as they gave him the oxygen. What a trick! They had a hard time hooking up his IV to get some blood work done before they gave him some hydration. He was so unhappy but the nurse showed me how his vitals calmed down every time I talked to him so my husband and I just kept talking to him eventhough he seemed to be sleeping. As active and exhausting as he can be, to see him so small and quiet in the hospital bed was much harder for me. (Now that he is back to his old roar and go self, I have to keep reminding myself of that!)

The next morning Ammon wanted to sit on my lap and shower me with kisses. He hasn't done that before. That made me smile. It made him smile too. As a side note, when I came home Lan said, "You kissed Ammon all day and only kissed me a couple of times". I responded, 'I was at the hospital and you didn't even see us. How do you know I kissed Ammon?' She gave me a long hard look and said, "I know you." That just made me laugh. Yep, I guess know me she does.

We now know some other things too.
1. Ammon has a seizure disorder that requires medication and we pretty much now know how much he needs.
2. We handled our first experience well and know that we can absolutely meet this need. We have wonderful family doctor and hospital that can take good care of him. We have an appointment with the pedicatric neurology dept at Primary Children's Hospital in SLC but that won't be until 3/5/07. We'll have his EEG and other results then to compare with his Chinese reports. I'm interested to see how well, or not, they correlate.
3. We love Ammon. We would sell the moon for him.