22nd July 2012

Today was another 'normal' day, we were out doing the weekly shop and Aydan fell asleep in the trolley! Nothing unusual there, but I took a photo anyway, because it was cute :0)

We did our shopping, paid for it, and headed back for the car, and that's when it started...

I suddenly became aware that Aydan was having a tonic clonic seizure, so trying not to panic, I got him out the trolley and rushed back to the car, we made the decision to drive to the hospital as it would be faster than waiting for an ambulance, although looking back it wasn't such a smart thing to do, particularly as Aydan's daddy was panicking and he could have had an accident.

Anyway, we got to the hospital, and I jumped out the car with Aydan and ran into A&E, and started shouting very loudly 'can somebody please help me, my son has been having a seizure for 8 minutes now'

We were rushed into the resuscitation room, and I was quickly joined by a doctor and a nurse, who started stripping him off and doing observations on him. They asked me a million and one questions while working quickly. 

Diazepam was administered into his bottom and the doctor started to get a cannula into his hand, his seizure was still going strong, and I was doing the usual of holding his hand, stroking his hair, and trying to answer all the doctors questions.

Then he STOPPED breathing...

The nurse noticed my panic and quickly mentioned it to the doctor, I kept looking up at the heart rate monitor, and noticed that his heart was still beating, and that his oxygen levels were still at 100% so this calmed me briefly, until the emergency bell was pushed and we ended up with a room full of doctors and nurses.

I was dragged out of the room by a paramedic, who took me to a special room on the side and went to get me a cup of tea. I would normally decline, but decided that if the worst case scenario happened, then I would need the sugar to help with the shock.

I could hear alarms going off, and people rushing around. 

I was on the phone to Aydan's daddy, asking how long he would be before he got back here, as we were waiting for Aydan's nanny to come and babysit, but had unfortunately got stuck in traffic herself!

It's funny what goes through your head during these moments, mine were along the lines of 'no, he's a strong little boy, he's MY little boy, he will get through this.' my other thoughts were directed towards family who had previously departed, and I asked for their help, I asked them to help, and to be with him for whatever the outcome. 

That was the longest 40 minutes of my life.

Eventually things calmed down, and to my surprise, who came to see me? but none other than Aydan's consultant! This cheered me up instantly, because he had taken the time to come up to A&E and had also requested that he spoke to me first!

Aydan was OK and stable, the relief flooded me instantly!!

I was asked a bunch of questions about what we had been doing and whether Aydan had been poorly again. The only thing I could think of, was that we were currently on chicken pox watch, but other than a bit of nappy rash, he wasn't showing any signs of having chicken pox.

I was allowed to go back to the resuscitation room by then, and found Aydan asleep with a tube up his nose and into his belly, and another bigger one down his throat keeping his airway open, with an oxygen mask on over the top. They had helped him to breathe by BVM (bag-valve-mask) method, and he had stopped breathing for 30 minutes!!

Thankfully his heart remained string throughout, so this had still carried the oxygen to the rest of his body.

Apparently it was the diazepam which had caused him to stop breathing.

Daddy arrived 5 minutes later as I was talking to a paediatric doctor and filling in his admission notes.

We were then taken to the paediatric ward and were told we would definitely be staying in over night so that they could try and find out what caused him to have the seizure.

This was Aydan a couple of hours later! You would think that I had made up the whole story I have just written! He's a fighter this one :0)