Our Thanksgiving break starting out great tho. We drove straight to McAllen and stayed at my parents' home. Frankie was able to see Frozen 2 with her cousin, walk my parent's dog daily without HIM pulling HER, get loads of hugs & kisses from her grandparents, and load up on the best tex-mex food around!
After a few days in McAllen, we were enjoying ourselves at the ranch with family. Rides on the Polaris, fishing, dancing while the boys went hunting for hogs and deer. Mark, Frankie and I had to sleep together on a king size bed. No problem. At 4am, two nights before Thanksgiving day, Mark woke up to hunt. Frankie and I stayed in bed. After snoozing a while longer (because I think that's what I do all night sometimes)..all of a sudden, I could feel the bed shake...like every 8 seconds. Yes, I was counting the seconds in-between! My first thought was that Frankie was having hiccups. But why would anyone get hiccups in the middle of their sleep cycle?
After a minute or two, I started worrying even more. My eyes were wide open and my mind was going wild... but I didn't want to wake her up to ask her if she was ok. She then sat up in bed. I quickly turned on the lamp. I asked, "Are you OK?" She just stared. My next thought was to check her pants. Sure enough, she had an accident. That's when I panicked. This was our indicator that IT came back!
I quickly woke my sister up in the next room and my nephew who was sleeping in another room. I couldn't find my phone OR the rescue med. I told my nephew to text Mark, "9-11, come back to the barn." Meanwhile, I was sitting next to Frankie, trying to act calm asking her questions and bossing my sister around to look for my phone. Frankie was responding to me.....without saying words, just nodding yes and no. So, she was coherent. I found the rescue med but didn't give it to her thinking the seizure was over. She was sitting up tho, rocking back and forth and smacking her lips. Mark arrived and I grabbed my phone my sister found to take a video of Frankie since our neurologist likes to see these episodes.
After cleaning her up, we wrapped Frankie in blankets and she fell back asleep for a couple of hours. When she woke up, she had zero recollection as to what had happened. She was acting totally fine after that although at first she said her head felt cold. I couldn't help but dwell on the question..what happened that night and WHY???
I called our neurologist first thing the next morning. Thank GOD she was in her clinic that day since it was the day before Thanksgiving. She upped Frankie's seizure med at night...thank goodness we had wiggle room to increase the med since she has gained weight since her last dosage adjustment. I told Dr Jan about the video and she told me I should have given Frankie the rescue med. It seemed to her that she was still seizing, even though she was responding to me. These are partial-focal seizures. The initial one was a myoclonic seizure. The first of it's kind for us!! Myoclonic seizures can start as hiccups or other involuntary jerking of the body.
Frankie continued to have a blast at the ranch the next few days. I had a great time too, despite having PTSD. And yes, I really think that's what I have. I'm not a war veteran or someone that was in a tragic accident; but it's time for me to accept that I struggle with worry and anxiety over what can be, life threatening episodes. I tried so hard to not think about the seizure and the fact that we were far away from a hospital. I prayed like crazy and well....it worked.
I can't believe my entire family was able to get together for a photo, too!
Our drive home from South Texas was 9 hours. During that drive Frankie got the hiccups. Yup. I said to Mark..."Omg...Frankie has the hiccups!!" He seemed unphased..perhaps not to make my anxiety even worse. She was singing while she had the hiccups and I was googling the heck out of "what causes hiccups." I told myself it was the Fanta drink she begged us for that caused it. (Carbonated drinks can cause hiccups.) Who knows what the culprit was...but my anxiety was real and luckily, the hiccups subsided. We finally made it HOME mentally and physically in tact.
Now that we are settled back, we wait a few more days before we see Dr Jan, our neuro. I have notified the school about IT and the new symptoms to look out for. We even had an ARD meeting to discuss this, as well as other concerns we had regarding Frankie academically. Thankfully, the meeting went better than expected.
We went ahead with our appointment to see an orthodontist to correct Frankie's front teeth. We pulled the trigger pretty quickly and got her braces the day after our second consultation! I forgot how bad the pain is afterwards. After all, I was Laura Ingalls' doppleganger with a huge overbite at her age and I had braces for many years because of it. I don't miss the days after my braces were tightened...OUCH!!
Soft foods for the next few days!
So now I'm left with the question...did the excitement of being at the ranch and Frankie's weight gain cause the perfect storm? We may never know. What I DO know is that my biggest Christmas wish is that IT is evicted and never comes back.
PEACE out!!
