4/30

Dialysis seemed normal today. He took a test for economics. He played a few games on his phone. He didn’t have an excessive amount of fluid taken off. Everything seemed normal.

His treatment was normal. His labs were taken. His blood was already returned. We were practically ready to leave. He was talking about what he was going to have for dinner. I looked away from him for a moment and out of the corner of my eye, I saw his arm in the air and it got my attention. I looked at his face and knew.

“He’s having a seizure.” I told the nurse who was right there.

I am not well versed in human seizures. Ethan has never had one before. He just HAD to make it so now we have to check THAT on all the medical forms as well as all the other boxes.

So I did what any other Vet Tech would do. I treated him like a dog. In a calm and soothing voice I repeated “you are ok. Just breath and relax.” This was while I applied ocular compression to both eyes to apply pressure on the vagus nerve. We do this in dogs. It works by stimulating the vagus nerve to release an amino acid that blocks certain brain signals and calms down the nervous system. The nurse looked at me like I was crazy as I was jabbing my thumbs into his eyeballs. I held them there. His limbs twitching.

The nurse asked me if he had ever had a seizure before. “No”. 

Apparently a page went out to the entire hospital for his doctor to report right away to his bed.

“He’s going to need oxygen” I called out calmly. By this time we had a crowd. Ethan was making grunting noises. His eyes sweeping back and forth across the room. Seeing but not processing a thing. A lights on, nobody’s home situation.

I watched as he progressively turned purple. 

“Oxygen! He needs oxygen.”  I was getting a bit frustrated as there were all these bodies and no action. I have seen enough purple-y moments and gauged his oxygen in the 60%’s.  He was making grunting and gurgling noises. I saw blood in his mouth.

“Can you sit him up so he doesn’t aspirate?” I asked the nurse that still wasn’t getting Ethan oxygen. I was briefly frustrated with this, but this is not my first rodeo. 

“He needs oxygen.” I said to another nurse making eye contact. For me this assigns responsibility. Sometimes in an emergency, people need to be told what to do. She delivered. By this point he was even more purple-y.

“Is he breathing?” I heard someone ask. (Because he was that purple) he was in fact breathing.

“Does he have a heartbeat?” I heard someone else call out.

They finally slapped an oxygen mask on him. Finally he started to pink up.

“Just breath and relax. You’re ok.” I kept repeating.

I took my thumbs out of his eyeballs. He started to become restless and toss from side to side. They secured his dialysis catheter so he didn’t accidentally pull it out.

He then became quite confused. That lasted a minute or two and poof. Back to normal.

He bit his tongue pretty decently during his seizure. It has a nice gash. It will heal but it hurts him.

Deep breath. They transferred us to the emergency room. It was a bit chaotic to share his medical history. They then shared that they may want to start him on a new medication. I told them I would have to run it by the transplant team. The lady told me it would be difficult to do on a Friday evening. “They have an on call number.” I told them.

They ultimately told me that they weren’t going to start him on seizure medication but he would require a neurological follow up complete with EEG the things they glue on his head.

One of the doctors eluded we could come home tonight. Another doctor said we were going to be transferred up to either the cardiology or neurology icu for monitoring. We were told there is a 60% chance of another seizure happening. Then we sat in the ER for a few hours just waiting. Screaming baby on the other side of the curtain. It was awesome. By awesome, I mean....tortuous and not ideal

Ethan’s tongue got increasingly more sore.

Ethan is frustrated. He feels sad. They told him that he couldn’t drive for a year. This obviously disrupts his summer plans, his MCC plans his car stuff.

“Everything I have been looking forward too has just been taken away.”

We began to focus on the bright side.

1. This didn’t happen while you were driving. You didn’t get into an accident or fall down stairs further injuring yourself or sustaining a head injury that would set you back.

2. This happened in a medical setting with mom right there and you were safe.

3. While it may not be convenient, if this was going to happen, better now then later.

4. I was with you and made sure all the information made it to the doctors including medications, history, and made sure all the facts were given right away.

There are a lot of bright sides of how this happened and we need to focus on those. We will figure the rest out as we go along.

Paul and Avery made a trip to Strong to bring us an overnight bag and Ethan’s medications.

So we sit and wait for the next transfer..... next to the crying and screaming baby. 😳