Our story - part III

Sripathi being born on the 26th hour after my water broke was obviously infected. I do not remember what sort of an infection and not sure what levels was the infection, whatever that was it required him to stay on antibiotics for 2 days, administered via IV. After the second day he was fine to finally come home. We believed all the needles were done for good, how wrong we were.

So the pediatrician sees Sripathi after 2 days. He was perfect at least that’s what the ped said. Though he had minor glitches with the left eye tearing because of a blocked tear duct and we were asked to massage the eye 3 or 4 times a day. Another visit with the pediatrician in 2 weeks and we were all concerned about Sripathi’s large head. Having already done an MRI which was not really necessary, the ped suggested we get a head ultrasound. So we did that when Sripathi was 20 days old and it came back perfectly normal. So the ped measured Aravind’s and my head circumference. He said that since Aravind was also in the 98th percentile with a large head our son could have inherited it. So the matter was put to sleep assuming there was nothing to worry henceforth.

When Sripathi was one month old, he got his Hep B, which we did not give at the hospital. Later my mother noticed that Sripathi was looking away to his left and would not respond, since he was crying a little while back she though he was getting upset because he was hungry. So she asked me to nurse him and then he was fine. So we didn’t think much about the incident. When Sripathi turned 2 months old on 29th December, my parents left to India and on the same day Sripathi was given the 2nd month scheduled vaccines which were DtaP, Hep B dose 2 and oral Rotavirus. The very next day when I changed his diapers at around 7 in the morning, his face suddenly turned to his left and his eyes got focused to the left and he did not respond. I picked him up and tried to talk and get him to turn away but then only after a while did he respond. But then he fell asleep immediately. This same thing happened once again in the evening, so we called the ped and informed him and he suggested we bring him in the next day.

So on New year’s even we went to the ped, he heard all that we said, but then he did not want to take any decision without seeing things for himself, so he suggested that we take video if we see Sripathi showing signs of focusing away all of a sudden. And so we came back home and were glad that nothing happened that day. But the next day on 1st January 2010, at around 8 when I was changing Sripathi’s diapers and clothes, he did it again, in a fright I shook Aravind and asked him to get a video. I tried to show a torch light on Sripathi’s face, I tried to turn his head, I picked him up, I tried to nurse him. Nothing seemed to get Sripathi out of the fix. He came out on his own after a while and then immediately went to sleep. We were scared, so we called 911. The paramedics who came saw the video and said they were really not sure if this required any medical attention now that the baby is sleeping. But they mentioned that we need not hesitate to call them again if we felt uncomfortable. Once again at 11 I noticed the same thing but then Sripathi came out of it within few seconds.

Then at around 1 in the afternoon, it happened again and we called 911 again. They checked his vitals which seemed normal. Yet we were rushed to Arnold Palmer hospital. In the ER the first things that welcomed us were needles. Sripathi needed IV, just in case he has another seizure, the only way they can administer medication is via IV. I was psyched. I was crying and trembling and I was to continue this for over a month. We were explaining Sripathi’s condition to every physician and nurse. He was taken for a CT scan, given a spinal tab and that night Sripathi was admitted into the pediatric special care unit. He was almost unconscious because of the medications which were administered to stop what we learned were his seizures. Until then I’ve never heard about seizure, about pediatric special care, about how so many children are critically ill. We were devastated given the situation and more so because nobody could answer our questions. The next morning a neurologist visited Sripathi recommending another MRI following the one already done at birth. She said the CT did not reveal much. Also they’ll perform an EEG to monitor his brain activity. Every exam performed was terrible, I do not want to go over the details. The neurologist came in the next day and told me that the results of all the tests were not revealing anything precise. Yet its highly important that Sripathi stay on medication to control his seizures. So she prescribed a drug and wanted to keep Sripathi hospitalized for one more day to see if he is able to stay seizure free on the drug as well as to make sure he is able to keep the medicine in. So finally on the night of 4th January 2010 we left home with Sripathi and Phenobarbital (his new medication) but sadly not for long…