Towards the end of a rather uneventful day at work, I picked up the store phone and began talking, only to have Jeff interrupt me, telling me that Norah was having a seizure. My brain froze at that moment, and I told him to get her to the ER. He reminded me that I had the car, at which point I told him I was leaving, left a customer mid-transaction, and raced out the door. I was almost home when I received another phone call from Jeff saying that our neighbors were watching Justin as Hector drove him and Norah to the ER, and they were almost there.
I had checked my cell phone, and Jeff's first call came in at 5:13. I arrived at the ER at 5:30, where Hector gave me a hug, told me Justin would be okay with them, and that Norah was in their prayers. I frantically tried to figure out where I was supposed to go to get to Jeff and Norah, and a man waiting in the ER (obviously a patient himself) pointed to the window I needed to go to. As soon as I said my daughter was there, I was told to head to room 6.
Upon entering the room I found Norah surrounded by a medical team, with Jeff at her head trying to talk to her. She was convulsing with her eyes rolled back. I could only touch her legs and found it devastating not to be able to hold her, but knew she needed to be taken care of by professionals and I needed to stay out of the way. The doctors and nurses introduced themselves to me and explained what they were doing and what they thought was going on. From the first call Jeff made to 5:30 he (with Hector's help) had gotten her to the ER, they had already performed a CT scan, and administered medicine to try and pull her out of the seizure. I watched the main doctor as she watched the clock. When Norah's seizure had lasted too long for their liking (over 30 minutes) it was decided to sedate and then intubate her.
While waiting in a room off to the side while they worked on our beautiful baby girl, Jeff was once again my rock. He found the words to verbalize our prayers and we sat in near silence as the clock ticked on, our hearts stopping every time a code went out over the PA system. We knew we were headed to a children's hospital, so immediately began making plans for how the rest of the evening would play out. We also started making phone calls to family members to alert them to the situation.
When they finally let us back in to see her, she was not handling the tube well, and kept vomiting, over and over again. When the transfer team arrived, Jeff went ahead and left to get Justin back to the house and under uncle Patrick's care, and to get a change of clothes for each of us. We were told that they would transport Norah as soon as she was stable enough (she was still vomiting). So they worked on all the necessary paper work while trying to keep Norah comfortable.
After an hour Norah was doing somewhat better and it was decided that we needed to go. I thanked the doctors and nurses who had worked so hard to help us, then climbed into the ambulance while they lifted Norah in. The driver climbed in and let the Children's hospital know that we were departing from the ER and were headed their way with "5 souls aboard". Jimmy (the driver) told me that we would be taking it nice and easy so as to keep the jostling to a minimum since Norah was still having trouble with the tube. We got on the highway and kept to 60mph as we made our way to Children's.
After about 20 minutes Amy (one of the EMTs) leaned forward to inform me that Norah was reacting to one of the antibiotics that they had just given her. I didn't think too much of it until she leaned forward again to let Jimmy know they needed to hurry. He pushed it up to 80mph. A few moments later she leaned forward again to say, "Jimmy go ahead..." She never finished the sentence because he knew what she was saying. The lights started flashing and the sirens began to wail.
I decided to cry later on, when there was time, but at that moment it was really hard not to burst into tears. Instead I kept praying.
I had checked my cell phone, and Jeff's first call came in at 5:13. I arrived at the ER at 5:30, where Hector gave me a hug, told me Justin would be okay with them, and that Norah was in their prayers. I frantically tried to figure out where I was supposed to go to get to Jeff and Norah, and a man waiting in the ER (obviously a patient himself) pointed to the window I needed to go to. As soon as I said my daughter was there, I was told to head to room 6.
Upon entering the room I found Norah surrounded by a medical team, with Jeff at her head trying to talk to her. She was convulsing with her eyes rolled back. I could only touch her legs and found it devastating not to be able to hold her, but knew she needed to be taken care of by professionals and I needed to stay out of the way. The doctors and nurses introduced themselves to me and explained what they were doing and what they thought was going on. From the first call Jeff made to 5:30 he (with Hector's help) had gotten her to the ER, they had already performed a CT scan, and administered medicine to try and pull her out of the seizure. I watched the main doctor as she watched the clock. When Norah's seizure had lasted too long for their liking (over 30 minutes) it was decided to sedate and then intubate her.
While waiting in a room off to the side while they worked on our beautiful baby girl, Jeff was once again my rock. He found the words to verbalize our prayers and we sat in near silence as the clock ticked on, our hearts stopping every time a code went out over the PA system. We knew we were headed to a children's hospital, so immediately began making plans for how the rest of the evening would play out. We also started making phone calls to family members to alert them to the situation.
When they finally let us back in to see her, she was not handling the tube well, and kept vomiting, over and over again. When the transfer team arrived, Jeff went ahead and left to get Justin back to the house and under uncle Patrick's care, and to get a change of clothes for each of us. We were told that they would transport Norah as soon as she was stable enough (she was still vomiting). So they worked on all the necessary paper work while trying to keep Norah comfortable.
After an hour Norah was doing somewhat better and it was decided that we needed to go. I thanked the doctors and nurses who had worked so hard to help us, then climbed into the ambulance while they lifted Norah in. The driver climbed in and let the Children's hospital know that we were departing from the ER and were headed their way with "5 souls aboard". Jimmy (the driver) told me that we would be taking it nice and easy so as to keep the jostling to a minimum since Norah was still having trouble with the tube. We got on the highway and kept to 60mph as we made our way to Children's.
After about 20 minutes Amy (one of the EMTs) leaned forward to inform me that Norah was reacting to one of the antibiotics that they had just given her. I didn't think too much of it until she leaned forward again to let Jimmy know they needed to hurry. He pushed it up to 80mph. A few moments later she leaned forward again to say, "Jimmy go ahead..." She never finished the sentence because he knew what she was saying. The lights started flashing and the sirens began to wail.
I decided to cry later on, when there was time, but at that moment it was really hard not to burst into tears. Instead I kept praying.
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