A Trip to the "Grand Mal"

Typically, going to the "Mal" would sound pretty appealing to Steph. "Is there a Forever 21 there?!" Not in this case, sadly. Last night at about 4:30 am, she experienced what seems to be an almost textbook version of a grand mal seizure. All muscles firing at once, eyes wide open, non-responsive to outside stimuli, etc. For both Steph and me, it was a pretty terrifying experience. Nothing like this had ever happened before to Steph, and I had never seen or dealt with anything like it either. The seizure itself lasted somewhere around 90 seconds, but the effects of it lingered for another seven minutes or so. Steph slowly progressed from totally unresponsive, to awake but disoriented and confused, before finally coming back around to her old self. She has no memory of the seizure. The first thing she does remember is waking up to me telling her that she had had a seizure, that she was going to be okay, and the eight paramedics hanging out around the bed staring at her were there to help. A bit jarring, to say the least.

After getting strapped onto a gurney, Steph was whisked off to the hospital. I packed up the girls and followed behind. We spent the next couple of hours jammed into a tiny room in the ER waiting for test results. At this point, everything (i.e. blood work, CAT scan, etc.) seems normal. There's no apparent cause of the seizure, which is actually pretty common in many cases. Often, a person will have a seizure like this once and then never have another one in their entire life. That's what we're hoping for here. We'll be visiting a neurologist tomorrow for an MRI and other tests. We're hoping that we'll get more information about what we are actually dealing with here. At this point, we're told that Steph cannot drive for three to four months. Yep, that's right. An active mother of three little girls with activities like pre-school, cheer clinic, school carpool, innumerable trips to Costco etc. can't get behind the wheel at all for at least three months. It's going to be fun scheduling this stuff out, but friends and family have graciously volunteered without hesitation to help make it work. Now Steph can join Heather (welcome home, girl!) in the private chauffeur club. A stroke and a seizure? It's Driving Miss Hazy.

Many thanks for all of your calls and generous offers to help. Steph has really been buoyed up talking to everyone. The dinner brought by the Taylors tonight was off the hook! The Smart Cookies Natalie Nelson delivered are contributing deliciously to our fat reserves. Marina Brown made it possible for me to take Andie to her first day of pre-school. Emily Evans made Andie and Avery disappear for a nice, quiet while. Mindy Christensen and Kim Copeland brought some rockin' treats. And there have been countless calls, texts, and gestures of support. Again, thank you to all.

I'll try to keep this updated, so check back when you can. Steph will probably get back in on the action here pretty quickly.

- Dave