You might want to get a coffee first - this is a very long post!
Last night Princess S had another fainting spell/seizure - it seems to still be rather unclear as to what it really is. The girls were cleaning their teeth with the apparently obligatory laughing and so on, when Princess S had once of her coughs, then a huge vomit (mostly on the bathroom floor, thankfully) then fell to the ground. When I got to her a nano second later she was very blue from the bottom of her nose to her chin, vomit all round her mouth, arched back....I tried to roll her onto her side because of all the vomit, but she was as stiff as a board and wouldn't be rolled anywhere. We called the ambulance and waited. She came round while I was on the phone to the operator and gasped for breath and I could then roll her onto her side. It was very full-on and some aspects of it seemed to happen so fast, while others seemed to drag on forever. We decided on taking her to hospital to be checked, mostly because this 'spell' was different from the other 3 she's had in that this time she wasn't in extreme distress before hand. She'd had worse coughing fits in the past few weeks and she'd vomited from coughing as well, without having the same outcome. She was terrified of going in the ambulance, and of going to the hospital. I overrode her fears and off we went.
Typically the (male) ambulance driver headed off in the wrong direction, having no idea of the easiest/most sensible way to head south....and I assumed we were going to the Women's & Children's in the city. I asked them if that's where we were going and the driver responded with a mumbled..."I thought I could turn right back there....". When we got to the hospital we had to wait (with her on a bed) in the corridor next to the triage nurse's station. On the way I'd sent a text to D so that he knew, and he said he'd come once he'd finished work, which he did.
A couple of really, really funny things happened which helped lighten the mood somewhat. We were near (across the end of) a set of 3 bays with patients in them. One had a very large woman (patient) with two (also very large) female visitors. Then, along came another 3 very large women, one with a walking stick, to make sure everything was ok - presumably family as they all looked very much alike. When this woman was taken to x-ray all 5 of them started following! The nurse suggested they could wait for her to return. So 3 of them waddled (and I'm not kidding - they looked like a bunch of ducks) they waddled to a set of 3 seats at the far end of the corridor, near the vending machine, and squeezed their rather generous bodies into the seats. They looked like some kind of caricature sitting there together. When the patient returned from x-ray they all waddled back down the corridor to stand by her bedside....and there is barely enough room for one visitor to sit on a chair in the cubicles, let alone 5 very large women! When finally they wheeled the patient through into the Emergency dept D and I looked at each other and burst out laughing! It was just so funny.
The other funny thing - we arrived at the hospital just before 8:00pm. We finally went around to the paediatric emergency section at about 11:00pm and it was midnight before we saw a doctor for the first time. You do expect a long wait when you go there, but apparently the paed. dr rostered on last night called in sick! So 'general' emergency dr's were seeing the kids and calling down the paed registrar when needeed. So in walked this moderately hansome youngish man and when he started to talk I felt like I was in Notting Hill, About a Boy and Bridget Jones' Diary all at the same time - he sounded exactly like Hugh Grant! Didn't really look like him, but if I just closed my eyes I could swoon quite happily! But it did make it hard to take him seriously....Then he called down the paed registrar who came at about 1:00am and spend a long time with us, going through what had happened and what they could tell so far (which wasn't much). She was a lovely lady/girl "Dr Bec" and the funny thing was that she sounded exactly like our children's pastor, CW, when she talked! It was just so bizarre. She was just brilliant with Princess S and even coaxed her into allowing them to prick her finger to get some blood - the slightest suggestion of this in the past has resulted in screaming immediately. Sometimes it's best to just step back and let complete strangers do the talking....
Anyway, we eventually went up to the refurbished paed ward at about 2:00am at which time D went home. The new ward is just amazing! It's like a hotel! Very impressive. They have a circular nurse's desk and near the floor there's a port-hole cut out, one in each side and there's a fish tank behind the port-hole. How very clever! So we were very comfortable and finally climbed into bed at 2:30am.
The upshot this morning was that apparently about 10% of people who have recurring fainting episodes have a small seizure at the end of their faint. It's possible that Princess S is in the 10%. They also said the nasal swab that was done at the GP's for whooping cough last week wasn't done properly and could be a false negative, so this morning they took another swab from the back of her throat and are testing it now. It is still very unclear what the trigger was last night, as her other episodes have all had very obvious triggers. So the dr has ordered an EEG which couldn't be done today so we'll go back for that when they send us an appointment time. The Consultant said that even if it is some form of epilepsy they wouldn't consider preventative medication at this point, until such a time as she was having them every couple of months and it was being disruptive to day-to-day life. I'm pretty happy with that. The other trick is that EEG's are not always accurate in picking up epilepsy. So really the only clear answer we have so far is that we need a first aid plan for when this happens, which will include (depending on the severity) an ambulance and possible hospital visit.
It really was a scary experience, much more so than the other times this has happened. I'm so thankful my friend T was there to help with Madame I (who was very distressed at all that was happening), and BFF was coming as well and arrived after the ambulance got here. We were going to have a 'girl's night', but that soon changed....
Onward and upward....hope you survived the epic blog! Must be time for a trip to the loo now you've finished your coffee....lol
