3rd time in 5 months.

Ella had another seizure. Most of you reading this blog may know, since it was about 10 days ago (sorry, catching up has not been high on my priority list).This time was a little different, and probably less scary. Both of the kids went to bed on a Tuesday night with a bad cough. Joe got up and checked on Ella a few times during the night, the last time was at 4am. At 5:30am he heard her through the monitor seizing....and our morning began. We call the paramedics and while waiting, gave her the meds that we carry with us for this occasion. When the medics arrived her episode was under control...for about 1-2 minutes, then she started seizing again. They went ahead and put her in the ambulance. I rode with them, and Joe followed in his car. Our neighbor, Kathy, happened to see what was going on and she came and stayed with Will until Bill, Linda and Kristie all arrived.

Here is the email I sent to my SS class:

Hey class,
I thought I would go ahead and send out an email, since I have a moment.

We knew that neither of the kids felt well yesterday and had been running temps on and off, but yesterday both got chest coughs. Last night, after I got home from bible study, I went in and checked on both kids and Ella had a rough cough and looked a little off (no real description of what I mean) so we held her for a while. Eventually we put her back to bed and propped her up so that if she coughed, she wouldn't be laying flat. I, Andrea, was up with Will and his cough till about 2:30am. Joe go up at 4am to check on Ella, because he's a good daddy and wanted to keep tabs on her, and she was sleeping soundly. At 5:30am Joe heard her through the baby monitor and went to her room to find her seizing. He shouted to me over the monitor to call 911 and the word "seizure"...and then it was off to the races. Getting dressed, giving emergency seizure meds, brushing teeth, packing bags, giving info to paramedics, calling parents and Kristie. They got one of her seizures under control and then about a minute or two later she started up again...so they gave her more meds and we headed off to the hospital. Our neighbor, Kathy, came over and watched Will until Kristie or the Mitchell's showed up. We really are so blessed by having people available to help. We got to the hospital and they put us in a room and got us all set up...again, God was faithful. Some of you may remember Ryan and Carrie Schirato who used to be in our class...Ryan's mom is Reed's assistant, they are both nurses in the ER here (Ryan has a cool job over the whole hospital at night) and we got to have Carrie as our nurse...what a blessing!! So, now we know she doesn't have a UTI (urinary tract infection, which is what she had in April and August), flu test was negative, chest x-ray was clear...so, now we wait, and we wait, and work on the computer and our verses, and wait some more. I'd love to say that there is something that any of you can do, but for now, there really isn't. We don't even know how long we'll be here, and we don't want anyone coming up to the hospital where the flu seems to be the worst...they had over 50 cases in the ER last night. So, just pray. We'd love to know you are praying, it just makes you feel covered under a warm blanket.

We love you all so much.

Joe and Andrea (although you know Andrea wrote the email while Joe walked around the room messing with all the medical equipment, trying to figure out how everything works)

So, we found out that both kids had parainfluenza...a type of flu. It's not H1N1, or anything of the A or B strain...something different. It was very contagious...so we all had to wear the masks. The paraflu can cause croup, which is what Will had...for almost a full week. Ella bounced back VERY quickly. We were only in the hospital a total of about 27 hours and were very happy to go home so soon this time. She has bounced back better each time this is happen, so we can only credit that to the Lord.