Friday the 13th, Trip to the ER

September the 13th evening was spent in the hospital with my baby boy. To preface this post I need to share the day before I had taken Aven to his normally scheduled check up. I mentioned to his pediatrician that Aven shakes a lot. Arms jittery, legs kicking, jerking his head around and his eyes would dart from side to side...happened all the time, especially when he was overly tired. I didn't know if it was just his personality or if it was something that needed medical attention. I was afraid it could be a bunch of different things after looking it up online. Google can be a wonderful tool or terrible! I didn't know if it was something called 'infantile spasms'. I was really scared that it was a sign that he was having seizures. Anyways, I mentioned it to the doctor that day. They said that they would call and schedule things with a nuerologist just to have things checked out to make sure he was okay.

The next day (Friday) I was sitting at home with Copper and Aven during the afternoon when I got a call from the Pediatricians office. The nurse spoke to me and mentioned that she did not schedule an appointment but would rather me go in the the ER with Aven. She didn't want me to be overly concerned but said that it would be a quicker way to get him seeing the doctors that he would need to see. They also mentioned to me to take a video of him shaking so I could show it to them.

UK is where we needed to go because they are a children's hospital. The only issue with taking him immediately was that I had a friends engagement session that I was supposed to photograph that evening. I asked the nurse if I needed to go pronto and she mentioned that we should go within the next day or two. I decided I would take him after coming home from my session.

After finishing up the engagement session we had a friend from church, come by to help give our little guy a blessing beforehand. Around 8 in the evening I packed up and took my baby to the hospital. Rodney stayed at home with the girls.

It was Friday the 13th and boy were all the crazies out! The children's ER was full to the brim! It took us an hour and a half just to be seen and vitals taken. After that they sent us back out to the waiting room telling us they would call our name in a bit. Whenever I would finally get Aven to fall asleep someone nearby would make a really loud noise that would wake him up. Poor thing! Oh, it was also a good thing I had an extra set of clothes in our bag because he pooped out of his first outfit. Someone looked into our stroller and said "your baby doesn't look sick". Your right, he doesn't and I hope he is not...that's what I thought. I didn't respond, just smiled and nodded.

Once we got back past the waiting room all the patient rooms were full so we were sitting outside in the hallway under a number which was supposed to be like it's own area. My little guy took it like a champ. We were both SO exhausted. I was yawning like crazy, I had gotten so used to going to bed around 9pm because Aven was not really sleeping through the night all that successfully yet.

Throughout the evening we had dr's come by asking about the situation, look at Aven, watch the video and then walk away. It was ridiculous. We sat out there for HOURS! Oh, and the hallway is really bright which is practically impossible to put a baby to sleep to.

They finally stuck us in a patient room around 12:30 saying that they were going to admit us to the hospital upstairs in a bit. They came back for us around 2am. Oh and did I mention there were babies around the same area with whooping cough and another was admitted with RSV. I wanted OUT OF THERE!

Once we were wheeled upstairs to our own room we had a nurse wake up my poor baby by taking him out of his warm car seat to take his temperature AGAIN and get his heart rate. They had just taken all that information an hour before. Very frustrating.

Even though it was against hospital policy I pulled out the couch in our room, made it into a bed  and had Aven lay curled up next to me on the floor. We were able to sleep for a few hours. It was freezing though and I couldn't figure out how to turn the heat on. The main children's nuerology specialist came to see us around 7am.

One thing I noticed the doctors doing with Aven was having him lay on his back and pulling him up to a sitting position by his arms. I'm not sure what that showed but at least 2 of the doctors did it. After looking at him and watching the video I took they came to the conclusion that Aven was not having seizures. They mentioned that he had great eye contact and interaction and that they would call and check up on us in a few weeks.

So, after a very long night we were sent home with not many answers to what was causing his shaking other than the fact that he has tremors. The doctor mentioned he would more than likely grow out of it.

Here is just a glimpse into what he was like. When Aven was awake it seemed like 80% of the time he was moving around. Very busy arms and legs.