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Well I guess I will start the rest of Amanda's story here. I really wish I had more pictures to go along with the rest of the story, but when in a hospital and depressed it is not very natural to take pictures.
On Saturday, June 14, 2003, Amanda, Brandy and I started out for Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL which is about 2 hours from our house. On the way up there Amanda vomited twice in her car seat, but we really did not think anything of it attributing it to car sickness. We spent the rest of the day at Busch Gardens and had a good time. Later that day we checked into our hotel and ordered some dinner to be delivered to the hotel. By the time dinner arrived it was about 10:30 pm and we were all getting tired. Amanda was playing in the hotel room and climbing on the bed and around on the floor. Then she stood up and had one hand on the bed and tried to walk, but her left foot was dragging behind. At the time we thought it a little strange but attributed it to Amanda being over tired. We put her in her high chair and tried to give her some dinner but she did not want any. We noticed that she seemed a little week on her left side and was falling asleep in her high chair and slumping over. We decided to put her to bed and a good nights sleep would do wonders. About an hour after putting her to sleep she work up vomiting and still had a weakness on her left side. Amanda has probably only gotten sick a few times in her life and we thought that although we were probably over-reacting we better get to the hospital just to put our minds at ease. Just to back-tract for a moment, when we booked the hotel we ended up booking one that was about 10 miles from Busch Gardens instead of one closer. I thought next time we should look for a hotel closer to the park, but as I found out later fate sometimes takes these decisions out of our hands. Our hotel was about 2 miles from Tampa Children's Hospital!
Tampa Children's Hospital - We arrived at Tampa Children's Hospital around midnight and we all were exhausted from the days activities. They took us in the emergency room and performed a CT scan without contrast and blood work. They asked us a million questions including questions about Amanda's Port Wine Stain (PWS). Around 5am Sunday morning the Dr. came in and said he was fairly certain that Amanda has had seizures, but he would like to admit her and run more tests. Brandy and I talked about it and asked the doctor if we left and she did have another seizure would Amanda be at any risk. He said that he could not say for certain, but normally no, she would not. We decided to try to make it home and have her pediatrician look at her. The emergency room doctor called the doctor on call at our pediatrician's office to inform them of her condition and status and the fact that we would need to bring her in first thing on Monday morning. We went back to our hotel room and slept for a few hours and headed home.
Sunday evening - She was fine all the rest of that morning with the exception of being tired. At about 5:30 that evening we witnessed what we think to be her first clinical or "visible" seizures. During which Amanda's eyes would deviate or turn to the extreme left and her left hand would clench and release as if squeezing a ball. This lasted about 3 minutes, but seemed like an eternity. At 7:30 pm the same thing happened. Approximately 5 minutes after the seizures Amanda would vomit. This went on all during the night at about 2 hour intervals and the seizures lasted about 3 - 5 minutes with vomiting after each one.
Monday morning - I started calling the pediatrician's office first thing that morning and was able to get a 10 am appointment with another doctor in the office since Amanda's usual doctor was not in the office. As we were pulling into the parking lot Amanda started to seize in her car seat and we quickly unbuckled her and took her into the office so they could witness it and perhaps see something that we did not. After the seizure stopped the doctor examined her and said we needed to get right to the hospital and the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) would be waiting for us.
Monday at PICU - When we got to PICU they also examined Amanda and we went through the scenario once again as to what led up to that point. They said they would need to hook her up to an IV to keep her hydrated. They also started her in antibiotics because she had slight signs of an ear infection and a slightly elevated temperature. The PICU doctor also scheduled an MRI for later that afternoon and blood work immediately. When it was time for the MRI they sedated Amanda and took her down to the MRI room. Once again we were fortunate because they had just reciently got an MRI machine in our hospital and previously had to send patients to another local hospital. They allowed me to be in the room with Amanda and the MRI machine, but only after removing anything metallic on my body. This was my first experience with an MRI machine, but the best way to describe the sounds it makes is like something from a really cheap sci-fi space movie. Not necessarily loud, but very strange laser-ray gun sounding. After the MRI we went back to our PICU room.
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