Em's hospital stay - part 3

Emmy had a barrage of tests in the 3 days she was in the hospital. Makes me pretty thankful for our health-care system as when we were discharged, the only paper I got was Emmy's discharge instructions. I think we take our Universal Health Care system for granted at times as many are not as fortunate. I constantly felt every nurse and doctor treated Emmy as if she was their own. She had blood & urine tests x2, tox screens to check for any ingested causes of the seizure, chest xray,the afore-mentioned spinal tap, an ekg, an attempted eeg (wasn't able to be completed as Emmy refused to sleep- but will be attempted again). All tests came back normal. The eeg will tell us if this seizure was, in fact, caused by the fever rather than epilepsy or a brain lesion. Obviously, I am hoping for the cause to be the fever, and that does seem the most likely at this point.

We were originally going to be discharged on Monday, but that was delayed as Emmy would not stand on her own without complaining of pain. She would stand, hunched over, like a 90 year old. As she had the spinal tap, this caused some more concern with the Pediatrician. She showed no further signs of seizure activity, which was great, but now there was the concern about her back. Overall, Emmy's mood was good, a little whinier than normal, and she was far more lethargic than normal.

Tuesday morning, it was like someone flipped a switch with Emmy. She was 110% her old self. She ran from activity to activity in the playroom, ran down the hall to her 'fishies' (a fish tank on the Ped unit) and would comment if she heard a baby cry down the hall, 'baby cry' she would say matter-of-factly) They found that she grew Strep G on her throat swab, which can grow normally in infants, but the Pediatrician felt that was the cause of her fever. Again, it sounds to me like this was a febrile seizure rather than a more serious cause, but we won't be able to officially say that until after the eeg.

We came home Tuesday, and boy it has been nice to be home with Emmy. I was off this week anyhow, so I have had the chance to be over-protective and ensure my daughter was fine. I bought two (yes two) thermometers, and I have taken Em's temp probably 20 times in the past 3 days. Am I a freak? Probably, but I guarantee you would do the same (or at least have the urge to). Emmy has been herself, and is fully taking advantage of my happiness of having her home by asking for 'nummy treats' often.

A little side note. Emmy would say prior to this episode, 'tummy hurts' and would ask for a nummy treat. She would say her tummy hurt in the hospital, but I could not say for sure if her tummy actually hurt or whether she was looking for a treat. lol