a hospital visit

On July 10th Maeve gave me the biggest scare! Of course it was a day Sam was not working from home and was at the office. At around noon Maeve had a seizure like spasm for about a second and then afterward started screaming. Her whole body went rigid and then she just started shaking. Then about every 15 minutes she would have another episode but the shaking decreased each time. After about 3 episodes she only went rigid but she would still cry afterward and it was so scary and sad to see her in pain and scared as well. Sometimes she would have like 3 quick ones in a row. I called my pediatrician and told him what was going on and he suggested I come in and see him. I had filmed some of the episodes and was able to show him. He was kind of thinking it was a result of acid reflux but after watching the videos just to be sure he sent the video to a neurologist at Primary Children's Hospital in SLC. The neurologist said we should come in and get an EEG just to make sure it wasn't Infantile Seizures. I finally was able to get ahold of Sam at work and he drove us up to the hospital. Because of COVID only one parent was allowed to come with Maeve so he had to just drop us off and it was so sad. Her episodes went about every 15 minutes until around 5pm but decreased in severity as the day went on. We arrived at the hospital around 5 and got checked in and she got hooked up to the EEG machine. She handled it all pretty well until the end when they wrapped the gauze in place around her neck and it was so tight. Maeve was so brave and that was honestly what was keeping me sane the whole time but I definitely shed some tears. She was so strong and happy even though she was in pain. And all the nurses and doctors kept commenting on how cute she was and how good a baby she was. She had to get her blood drawn and the tech couldn't find the vein the first time and Maeve had to get poked twice and she did not like it at all. It was so traumatic for her that she didn't want to be put back in the crib afterward and just wanted to be held and snuggled. So even after she fell asleep in my arms she would wake up and cry when I put her down. We spent the night in the hospital and she finally let me put her down around midnight and then I got about 3 hours of sleep before she woke up again. There were also just so many babies crying so it was hard to sleep in general.

In the morning after a bunch of resident doctors came to check on her, the EEG came back normal and finally the neurologist came in. He was so nice and watched the videos I took and right away he basically said that her spasms looked like a result of acid reflux which is a symptom of Sandifer's Syndrome. After reading about it, it definitely seemed like that was what she had. I was so grateful that it wasn't anything more serious. He did say to get a follow up EEG if any spasms happened again but he was pretty confident it wasn't seizures because even if she didn't have an episode, there would still be irregularities on the EEG. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the hospital just to make sure she didn't have any more spasms. It was so reassuring to have Maeve back to her normal self- smiling and napping which didn't happen the day before.

Then they were finally able to take off her monitors. Her face was all irritated and red from the medical tape and gauze and looked so swollen and inflamed. She also had so much sticky stuff in her hair from the monitors. Her sweet nurses gave her a bath so she was able to go home all clean.

I'm so thankful that we had so many people praying for her and thinking about me during that time. And I'm so grateful for the sweet nurses and doctors at the hospital-seriously every one was so nice and they all loved Maeve. Sam came to pick us up and it was so good to see him. Definitely a scary few days but we're so glad that Maeve is doing well. We have to do some things to help with her reflux but most likely she will grow out of the spasms as her body matures but there is always surgery to help if needed. So proud of my strong, brave baby girl!