Back in the Hospital

 After having been seizure free for four weeks, Cyrus had a totally different type of seizure Tuesday morning. He woke me up early because it sounded like he was congested and when I came to the crib he was twitching in a tonic clonic fashion (apparently watching all those youtube videos when the spasms first happened paid off in more ways than one!), also formerly known as a Grand Mal seizure is the typical type of convulsions that people actually recognize as seizures. 

It lasted five minutes (which felt like two!) before I called the on call neurologist and she directed us to call 911 so that he could get the rescue medication as soon as possible as anything lasting longer than three is considered an emergency. Took the paramedics less than 10 minutes to arrive and his convulsions had lessened by this time, but had not stopped, they loaded him up, gave him some meds (that he didn't respond to), and took us to Stanford in style.

They gave him two doses of adavant (might be spelled horribly wrong, but it's a sedative) and he was still seizing, so they had to put him under completely with a paralytic, which required the use of a ventilator as he couldn't breathe on his own with this.

He was seizing for at least an hour and a half before they put him to sleep. But even after being put to sleep, they weren't sure the seizure had stopped. They said it was possible for him to still be seizing and just not be able to see it because he was now paralyzed and no longer able to move. So we had to get another 24 hour EEG.

For the record, he did stop seizing! And he's okay now and off the ventilator! Yay!

Update:

Apparently, in an emergency situation when they can't get an IV in fast enough, they just drill a hole into your leg bone. I haven't reacted very strongly to most of Cyrus' medical treatments as most of it hasn't been that invasive (just LOOKS scary). But them drilling a hole into his leg sent me into tears! 

Everyone was quick to assure me that it doesn't hurt as much as it looks like it should AND that children and babies heal really fast (compared to adults)!

My takeaways from that reassurance were pretty much:
1) So it DOES hurt.
2) No one defined "really fast".

But seriously, it was somewhat reassuring and honestly in retrospect, quite amazing that they can do this in an emergency situation.