December 5, 2011

I love these pictures.  They're from a sunny fall walk a few weeks ago on a warm November day.  Just looking at them makes me smile and feel a little more relaxed.  Unfortunately, the last few weeks have been very stressful here.   My sweet Esmé is having some awful (and scary) health problems.

It started a few weeks ago when she passed out at a competitive diving dryland training session while doing flips on the trampoline and into the foam pit.  When she passed out it looked like she was having a seizure, it was so frightening to watch.  We called an ambulance and by the time we reached the hospital she was starting to talk again and the colour was coming back into her face and lips.  From there we were sent to see a Pediatric Cardiologist to rule out any cardiac issues that might have caused her to pass out.  Fortunately, after a morning of tests in the Pediatric Cardiology Clinic they determined it wasn't caused by a cardiac problem.  She was diagnosed with vasovagal syncope and we were told we shouldn't be too concerned about it since it would be very unlikely to happen again and even less likely to happen at the pool where the water is cold so she could return to diving.

A day or two later she started mentioning a slight headache or what felt like a bruise on her head but then the pain/feeling would go away and it didn't seem to be really bothering her or interfering with her day.  When she passed out at diving it didn't look like she had hit her head and she had bounced off a soft netting and landed on a mat so I didn't think much of it at the time.

Two diving practices later, she had another episode, this time at the pool, accompanied by a splitting headache.  She was as white as a ghost and her throat was hurting and making it feel like she couldn't breathe.   We took her back to the hospital and they examined her but they weren't able to give us a diagnosis.  They made a referral to the Neurology Clinic and for an EEG and told us to come back if it got worse.  They didn't feel it was anything serious and said the headache was possibly a migraine...

Over the next few days she had a few more headaches that would come and go... I was watching her closely and she seemed to be okay aside from needing to lie down and rest every once in a while.  She was really upset that she wasn't able to go to her diving practices and that she was going to miss a competition in Ottawa that she'd been training hard for and really looking forward to.  Darin had taken a couple of overtime shifts at his work's Ottawa base (to help offset the travel/hotel costs) and we had planned to stay in Ottawa for the week as a family vacation and homeschooling field trip.   Since Darin had already committed to the work shifts we decided to make the trip anyway, take it easy at the hotel and stop by to cheer on her team at the pool.

Thursday she had a pretty good day with only the odd complaint of a slight headache.  That night we drove as far as my Inlaws who live a few hours from Ottawa.  On Friday morning we finally made it to Ottawa and got settled in at the hotel... then everything went down hill quickly .  It's a bit of blur but our trip basically involved a 2 hour nap in the hotel room followed by a trip to a nearby hospital, a transfer to CHEO (Ottawa's Children's Hospital), a quick trip back to the hotel to grab out suitcases, a long, miserable drive home straight to our local Children's hospital (Doctors at CHEO had eventually asked us to drive home and go to a local hospital because they felt she needed an MRI but they couldn't set one up until some time after the weekend and they didn't want us to get stuck in Ottawa). 

Hmm... my memory is a little foggy here because by that point we'd been up for almost 48 hours but in London they examined her and decided that since they were unable to do an MRI any time soon (due to wait times) they'd send her for a CAT scan instead.  We didn't have to wait long and the results were  clear for anything immediately life threatening so they decided to send us home to wait for an urgent neurology referral and MRI appointment.  By then my poor Ez had had a headache that had lasted close to 48 hours, her vision was blurry, she was going pale and almost passing out every time she sat up for any length of time and she was having trouble with her balance.

In the last week we've been to see her Pediatrician twice, and we've been told by the Neurology Clinic that they're booking "urgent cases" 2-4 months from now.  Her headache has been constant now for almost 12 days (although changing from severe to mild and back again throughout the day), she's having trouble walking, her vision is blurry and "dark" in one eye and she keeps going frighteningly pale and passing out/almost passing out.  Scary doesn't even begin to describe it.  We've been through so many stressful things in the last two years but I can honestly say that nothing we've been through comes close to the fear and stress of having one of your babies this sick, especially when you don't know the cause and there's nothing you can do to make it go away.

Finally today after yet another trip to our wonderful Pediatrician (so thankful to have a doctor who really cares, listens and advocates for his patients) we got a referral to Pediatric Neurosurgery instead of Neurology and they made an urgent (are there really different levels of urgent?  I thought urgent was pretty self explanatory!) referral for an MRI.  She's having it done tomorrow night at 8pm.

Although we don't know what's causing her to have all of these problems, there is a slight chance it's some sort of atypical migraine.  I'm praying for that.

***

A few more pictures from my phone...

Our trip to Ottawa... shortest family vacation ever.  I might have glimpsed the roof of the Parliment Buildings once on our drive between hospitals?  Thankfully children's hospitals have no shortage of pink popsicles... a few smiles while waiting for her CT and a few of her usual goofy Ez faces mixed in with all the tears.

We've been cooped up at home for the last 9 days or so... Isabel and I have been tending to Ez, crafting, drinking copious amounts of tea and lazing around watching hours upon hours of Little House on the Prairie...  I sure hope tomorrows hospital outing brings us some answers and that my sweet girl starts to feel better soon.