Peace in the Storm

Wednesday morning I arrived home from a 12 hour shift just long enough to kiss Lane good morning, grab breakfast, and give Lane’s oncoming attendant caregiver some specific instructions for the day ahead. Within an hour I was off to an annual employee performance eval for my RN work. Little did I know what would unfold that day, but looking back, I am so glad I didn’t.

About 5 minutes from my evaluation being done I felt my phone vibrate several times. Picking it up I saw that it was Lane’s caregiver, so as soon as the eval was done I called her back. “Lane just had a seizure and is feeling dizzy and nauseous, she said. I timed it, took his vitals, and ensured nothing was in his mouth like you asked us to do. He says he’s feeling ok now but would like to see you as soon as you can get here.” Recognizing he was stable, I grabbed a McDonald’s coffee on the way home knowing I probably wouldn’t want to sleep anytime soon. The rest of the morning Lane’s doc just told him to lay low but let them know if anything else went on. Later in the afternoon he began to feel dizzy, nauseous, and simply “cloudy.” This lasted for another 3-4 hours so I decided to take him in to Sparrow ER. His symptoms were not a whole lot different than when he had acute kidney failure so I’ve learned to act quickly. We arrived and got checked in and within minutes he was telling me he felt like he was going to seize again. If anything this got him back to triage and his ER room quicker, thankfully. As soon as the nurse introduced herself to him and I his head/gazed fixed to the left and he began to sweat profusely. His seizure lasted a minute or so, then they transferred him to the bed where they began hooking him up to various monitors and started an IV. When the doctor came in I told him about Lane’s recent med change, but also that he’d gone 10 months without having a seizure while on the previous med. Within the last 2 weeks he’s had 4 with dizziness and nausea in between. He said he would get blood work as well as a CT and chest X-ray done to rule anything out.

By 11pm we had been told that nothing abnormal was revealed in any of the scans or bloodwork but that they wanted to start him back on his old seizure med and stay the night for monitoring so the MSU neurologists could see him in the AM. Around 11:45p we were in Lane’s Neuro step down room, both ready to sleep for days.  After an uneventful night (except the lights being turned on ever 2 hours by the nurse to turn him :(), we were very ready to go home. The neurologists had stopped by and gave us an excellent explanation of why the seizures were occurring and what they wanted Lane to do with his meds from now on. We arrived home around 4p yesterday, physically and mentally worn, but grateful.

Grateful that even though Lane had the 4 seizures, nothing abnormal was causing them. Grateful that the doctors were quick to listen to my concerns and did the CT/blood work. Grateful that Lane’s seizure on Wednesday am didn’t take place while I was on a 12 hour shift. Grateful that the Neuro docs recognized what’s been going on and started him on a (hopefully) more efficient seizure med. Grateful that our NTBI family was quick to understand and reschedule our chapel presentation that was suppose to take place today. Grateful that even though Lane and I have been physically, mentally, and emotionally drained the past few days, Christ alone has sustained us with His peace, grace, and strength that is fully sufficient.

Thank you for your prayer, love, and support dear friends. Please continue.

Encouraged and upheld by our Savior today,

Emily (for Lane too)

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27