Wednesday night and Thursday

Wednesday afternoon, we are feeling pretty happy that Emily has been transferred to the regular children's wing and out of the ICU. She is now able to drink, eat, and do whatever she can at this point. She is coughing a lot and is congested, but they determined that she has a bout of pneumonia but nothing too serious.

Corky decided that he will drive back to Fort Irwin (about 110 miles) to pick up Gracey, shower, and sleep for the night. I would stay with Emily. Emily is exhausted and falls asleep at about 6:30. Meanwhile, I am recognizing that the crumminess that I am feeling isn't just from being tired and worried. I can tell that I am getting sick myself. Emily finally fell asleep and the only way for me to see a doctor is just go downstairs to the E.R. there at Loma Linda. Had I known I would be there for 6 hours I would have gone a lot earlier. I went at 10:00pm and waited for 3 hours. I began to worry that Emily would wake up by herself and be scared so I went up to the front desk and in all of my sobbing glory tell them my story. They said that I could go back up and visit her for probably 30 minutes. I went back and she was still asleep so I lay down and took a 10 minute cat-nap, and then headed back down to the E.R. where I waited until 2:30am. I finally saw the doctor and he ruled out strep throat, which is what I thought I was getting again. He told me that he would prescribe me a z-pack and that he would be right back. I listened through the curtain for another 45 minutes to him and another doctor talk about the Lakers, and Kobe Bryant's 3-point shot, and the San Antonio Spurs, and basketball playoff games, etc, etc, etc. I was getting SO UPSET! All I wanted to do was be with my baby. No wonder there stupid emergency room was backed up 6 hours!!!!!!!! Oh! My blood boils just thinking about it.

Anyway, back to Emily. I get back up to her bedroom at 4:00am and she is awake and they are giving her a breathing treatment. Apparently her oxygen levels dipped a little while I was gone. After the breathing treatment she was over, she fell right back asleep but I had the realization that Corky and I needed more help. We didn't know what to do with Gracey. Our friends were more than happy to keep her but we were afraid that she would feel abandoned. I finally relented to the fact that I am not Superwoman and I needed my mommy! ;) I called her the next morning and asked her to come. She left her work, packed her bags, and hit the road within an hour’s time. I was so grateful.

Corky finished a couple of things at work while Gracey was at school. They came down and I was SO HAPPY to see Gracey, and so was Emily. Not long after that, my mom showed up. Also on a happy note, Emily was a lot happier riding around in the wagon and seemed to be a bit more like herself.


That day, I met with the team of neurologists and they told me that the EEG did come back with abnormalities. It showed seizure activity in the front left lobe of her brain. They say it is hard to say tell exactly what caused the seizure but with her starting to get pneumonia that may have been what did it. Not that she had a seizure because of pneumonia, but that she is prone to them and so the pneumonia triggered the seizure. The doctors told us that way that Corky and I described her seizure and the mini-seizure she had a few weeks ago matches perfectly of what they would expect from that part of the brain. The blank stare, staring off into space, the slight trembling, etc. Another of my concerns was that because the most recent seizure last so long (45 minutes) that it caused permanent damage. The neurologists were able to confidently say that there was no permanent brain damage because of it! Victory!!