A Mother's Day Scare

We just spend part of another Mother's Day weekend in the E.R. Its ironic because just yesterday morning, I had read my friend Stacey's blog about family traditions, and I told Ty we need to think about what traditions we want to establish with Jake. This was not what I had in mind. Last Mother's Day weekend, Jake went to the E.R. because his fever spiked with a stomach virus, and they were worried about the effect it had on his yet to be repaired heart. Last night Ty took Jake and me out for dinner to celebrate and when we got home, I set Jake down in the driveway. He just fell right over. We brought him inside, set him down, he fell over again. Somehow, Jake could not physically stand or walk. At first he seemed to be almost paralyzed. We soon realized his equilibrium was very off. He has a slight ear infection and has been on ear drops so my first reaction was that the drops had an adverse effect on him. Jake would only crawl and kept just putting his head in my lap and whimpering. We started to get frightened so we called our doctor's office to talk to the doctor on call. Luckily (or really "blessedly"), our doctor, Dr. Chandler was on call and called us right back. She was quite worried and didn't think it was related to his ear infection. Because of his heart history, she sent us right to the E.R.

We got to St. Luke's at 9:00 p.m. and the waiting room was packed. When I told the receptionist what was wrong and she heard Jake has an ASD, they checked his vitals right away. His blood pressure was normal which was a good sign. Within 10 minutes, they took Jake back and we saw Dr. Bailey who we had seen a year before as well. Jake was still unable to stand or walk, but was in a great mood and was even laughing. She was puzzled as well, but was curious when she found out he had just had his chicken pox vaccine. Apparently in years past, children had a similar reaction after having chicken pox, and she wondered if the vaccine could cause the same symptoms. Basically she said Jake had Ataxia possibly brought on by the vaccine. With this condition, the part of the brain swells, children become unable to walk for several days, and it eventually goes away.

She also said that children with ASD's are more likely to have strokes and went ahead and called for an immediate CT Scan. They had us back for that in about 20 minutes. The technician was amazed by Jake. He held perfectly still during the procedure and actually had a great time. He laughed and laughed. He loved all of the lights and apparently felt like he was on a ride of some sort. She said he was the best baby she had ever filmed. That's our Jake! His resilient, sweet spirit definitely helped Ty and I stay calm.

His CT Scan was clear so they could rule out the big problems like tumors or a stroke. Dr. Bailey went ahead and sent us home to monitor him with the instructions to call Dr. Chandler first thing Monday morning to see about taking him down to Texas Children's for further testing. She wants us to see a neurologist about the possible chicken pox reaction and an ENT specialist in case it has to do with his inner ear (apparently, he has a middle ear infection which should NOT cause these symptoms). You have to see a specialist to check on the inner ear.

We put him to bed at 11:00 last night and Ty and I got a little bit of sleep. This morning he was even worse when he woke up and I did start to panic. But miraculously, over the course of the morning, his symptoms have gone away. Ty's family came over for lunch and by then he was laughing, running, and playing and acting normal. Its so bizarre.

I plan to call Dr. Chandler first thing in the morning anyway. I'm not sure what's going on, but even if he's acting fine now, I would love to know what was wrong. All this to say, I sure hope Jake doesn't make E.R.'s a mother's day tradition in years to come! Our little Jake is such a trooper...In my mind we had already conquered all of the big hurdles with his heart surgery. I didn't really even want him to have to see more specialists! So tired and puzzled, we'll try to figure this out in the morning and pray that Jake continues to do better later tonight and in the morning (he's napping now). What a Mother's Day!