My Elle

One of my biggest fears as a parent is that something will happen to one of my kids that I won't be able to control or stop. Losing Christian at Sea World when he was 3 for about 10 minutes was a terrifying experience. Haley spent 3 days at Primary Children's Hospital when she was one for a scary bout with RSV. Watching Paige fall off our deck to the cement patio 8 ft. below was horrifying. I guess it was just Elle's turn for some of that attention.

The kids and I met my sister and 4 other cousins at the pool to swim. We'd been there about an hour and were having a great time. I took Elle over to the very shallow water and sat her down with me to play. After a couple of minutes of just sitting and watching people, I realized that she was very still ... not moving. I said her name a couple of times but she didn't move, didn't turn, didn't respond at all. I picked her up and could see that something was definitely wrong. Her eyes wandered to the side and couldn't focus on me at all. She didn't talk, didn't cry, didn't twitch ... nothing. I ran to a life guard and asked him to check her out. The panicked kid said, "We don't know how to do that!" Ran to my sister, who confirmed that something was definitely wrong so I grabbed my wallet and keys and started for the hospital a block away.

By the time I reached the pool's front desk, she was starting to shake so I laid her on the counter and told them to call 911. I was definitely freaking out by this point. She still wasn't talking, wasn't crying, wasn't responding to anyone in any way. The EMTs stabilized her and we headed to the ER in the ambulance. At that point, Elle started to react in some strange ways. She kept trying to put things in her mouth .... the oxygen cord, the towel, the little thing they put on her finger to read her puls/ox levels. She started singing like a drunk person -- no words but a slurred rendition of Twinkle Twinkle. Weird behavior. I looked at her and thought, "Is this permanent? Does she have brain damage now?" These pictures kind of show how she was acting.

The doctor said she'd had a febrile seizure, a seizure brought on by a fever which is not uncommon in young kids. I hadn't noticed she even had a fever while we were at the pool but that plus the sun probably brought on the seizure. He said she would continue to act slow for a few more hours, which was the scariest part of the whole thing. To see her react so slowly and delayed was unnerving, to say the least.They ran a bunch of tests -- a cat-scan, chest x-ray, bloodwork, urinalysis, nasal swab ... Poor kid was poked and prodded a whole lot.A visit from the kids helped. Christian got the first smile out of her which definitely made Mike and me feel better.After a few hours, she was returning to more normal behavior ... talking some, smiling, eating a little.As we eventually drove away from the hospital, she slowly said, "Bye doctors. See ya later ... alligators."I'm so grateful for grandparents who rushed to our aid, for my sister and nieces who helped keep our other kids calm, for a good friend who showed up at the ER to let me cry on his shoulder and then brought us dinner that night .... How would we get through life without family and friends? It was moving to watch Mike and Dave give Elle a blessing, assuring all of us that she'd be o.k. And I'm especially happy to have my bouncy, bubbly, sparkly little Elle back. She's running around like normal this morning and for that I'm incredibly grateful.