Eamon's Big Adventure

Every morning, when Eamon wakes up "too early" (for me at least!)  I unswaddle him and let him kick away on his back at the bottom of the bed while I doze.  This morning he kicked for a while, and then because Patrick was home, he got his diaper and clothes changed by his dad and then kicked and cooed some more.  Around 7:30, he got irritated, so I brought him under the covers with me to nurse.  After nursing for a few minutes, he started making upset noises, jerking away from my breast, and forcefully squinting repeatedly.  I could feel his little arms and legs tensing up.  I was concerned, so I rolled him onto my chest and he started doing it again.  I called Patrick in and we watched it happen again, as he laid on his back.  I managed to get a terrible video of the end of the episode.

We called our pediatrician and he asked if Eamon had a fever.  We hadn't actually taken his temperature, but his skin felt normal, so we said he didn't.  Our doctor told us to go the pediatric ER.  We had to wake poor, sick Connor up so go with us, and off we went in the flurry of snow.  Eamon had one more episode in the car on the way there, and we arrive around 8:20.  During his triage we learned that he did indeed have a fever of 100 and he weighs 19.5 pounds (up a pound an half from 12/31).

Look how precious in his little gown!

Getting some vitals.

After getting examined, the doctor wanted to consult with the neurologist, so Eamon got blood drawn and a precautionary IV put in, just in case he needed fluids or IV medication.  It was pretty stressful having the IV put in because he was just crying in my ear as I held him, and I could hear Connor crying in the hallway because Eamon was crying.  Connor got a bag of peanut M&Ms as a consolation and Eamon got to nurse.

Little IV all bundled up.

Tastes delicious!

I loves it!

Connor really was very stressed out by the whole experience.  He was really frustrated that we couldn't make the TV show him the show he wanted to see, when he wanted to see it.  He's totally spoiled by Netflix!

Eamon's so happy we're letting him
watch the TV.  Dada is tired.

We got moved into a special room on the pediatric floor that has a camera on the ceiling for them to do a video EEG.  That way they have video footage as well as the EEG for seeing seizure activity.  We hung out a while, talking to nurses and doctors about what was going on.  From those doctors, we found out that the neurologist wanted to do the EEG, but we had no idea how long it would be.  The residents thought it would be a short one, and we would have it done by 5, which would have been awesome.  The ER doctor told Eamon, "We're going to spy on you more than the NSA spies on us." We also found out Eamon is 25.5 inches long (growth of a half inch in the past month) and his head circumference is 45 cm (up a cm from last month).
Funny story: when the nurse was talking to us about the basics she asked what kind of formula we used.  I totally wasn't processing and just stood there for a second before laughing and saying he was breastfed.  But seriously, is formula feeding THAT common that it was just her assumptions he was formula fed?  He's not even 6 months!

Connor got frustrated in the room.  He wanted to get in the crib really badly.  Probably to jump from it onto the couch.  Patrick took Connor to play in the toy room.  While they were gone, the technician from the EEG department (or something like that) came and hooked Eamon's head up with a bunch of electrodes, which Eamon was pretty chill about, until the last little bit.  The technician man was very impressed with how well Eamon was taking everything.  He casually mentioned that Eamon was having a continuous EEG that would be hours long, possibly 24 hours.  Oh boy!  He said it was just up to the neurologist and she would be in in a little while to check in a let me know what was happening.

Tired buddy.  It was nap time.

At the end of the process, I had to pee, and Eamon was losing it.  I called Patrick back in the room and Eamon promptly fell asleep in his arms.

Dada is a calming presence. 

After Eamon woke up (and I had eaten my hospital-provided cheeseburger), Patrick took Connor home for his nap.  Connor fell asleep on the way home, and after Patrick had changed him, ran into the living room yelling, "It's time to watch Super Why!"  Patrick brought him back to bed, tucked him in, and Connor rolled over and went immediately back to sleep.  Crazy babies.

Doing some naked kicking.  We had to change gowns because
he soaked his first one in drool.

We got several visitors after Patrick left.  The neurologist came and we talked about what had happened.  She said she wanted to get a few hours on the EEG and then evaluate whether we needed to stay.  One of the things she was weighing was how I felt, if I had any mother's intuition or felt the need to stay overnight and wake up at the hospital to get the same time in the morning monitored.  She said she didn't think he had had seizures, but wanted to check and make sure.  She said there was just one very rare disorder she was looking for and refused to tell me what it was called so I wouldn't google it and freak out.  A wise doctor!  She left to get her kids from their cancelled after-school programs, because by then there was accumulated snow and icy roads, and would be back around 5ish to look at the EEG and evaluate.

Eamon and I were also visited by some volunteers from the Child Life department, who brought him some much needed toys to the play with.  Eamon and I hung out for a while, and then it was time for him to sleep again.  He took a couple hour nap while I dozed and woke up a bunch of times.  My chair was really uncomfortable!  While he was asleep, I talked to the attending physician, who was happy to hear that the neurologist didn't think he had had seizures.

Eamon woke up at 4:50 and the doctor came by around 5:30.  She said his test looked perfect and admired how well he would sit up on his own.  The attending physician came in too and together they decided we were good to go.  They took off his electrodes and tried washing the sticky wax out of his hair, while I scarfed down my dinner.  I think they might have thought I was a little crazy because I was eating and talking to them and halfway ignoring Eamon while they were working on him.  But man, all that stress and the lack of snacks made me hungry!  It was pretty great having both those sweet doctor complimenting and admiring Eamon.  They were both wonderful.  They thought Eamon's sitting up was really great and everyone in the whole hospital loved his smile.

Eamon's awesome hair.

Patrick and Connor had been driving to the hospital and arrived after the neurologist left.  Eamon was disconnected to everything except the IV, so we waited for the nurse to come and take it out and discharge us.  We got to leave around 7, so were were only at the hospital for under 12 hours.

All dressed and ready to go home!

This whole day was really surreal to me.  I was in denial the whole time because I knew if I thought about anything negative, I would get very upset, and that wouldn't benefit anyone.  So instead I operated under the assumption that everything was fine and we were just there as a precaution.  The neurologist said at the end she thought that he might have been reacting to a stomach cramps.  He has been VERY gassy the past few days, and especially so in the early mornings.  I know baby's have weird, inexplicable, and often one-time reactions to things all the time.  The whole stay at the hospital, he maintained a 100 degree temperature, but was never upset by anything that wasn't upsetting, or fussy about how he was feeling.  I'm guessing this is just how he has been reacting to this terrible cold that Connor passed to Patrick and me.