Blessings, Gifts, Prayers, Friends and Family

I thought that writing down the events of the past several days would be a good way for me to put everything that has just happened to Kate and our family into perspective. I also wanted to share our story with everyone who has been praying so hard for us. Here it goes:

Sunday morning started out very normal for Kate. She was happy, was jumping around in her crib, and she told me she wanted to give me a hug and a kiss. We all got up around 6 (NOT by my choosing) and so I decided to go to the 7 am mass. (Jeff and I have been splitting up masses and not taking the kids, until Kelly gets older). After mass I went to a few stores and headed home. Jeff and the kids were watching cartoons and Jeff went into the kitchen to heat up some breakfast. When he came back into the room, after being out for no more than 5 minutes, he found Kate face down on the xylophone toy she had been playing with. Within the next half hour poor Jeff went from thinking Kate was playing a game or being stubborn, to realizing something was really wrong (during the entire time he was trying to help Kate, Kelly was hanging on his leg screaming and Brian was complaining that Curious George wasn't on because of some telethon). Jeff shined a flashlight in Kate's eyes to see if her pupils would dilate (they did but only slightly), and he put ice on her, at which time she opened her eyes and made a very uncoordinated attempt to get it off. When I got home at 8:25 Jeff hollered for me to come in the room. Upon entering I saw that Kate was lying on the floor on her side with her eyes open. When I said her name she looked at me briefly but didn't speak and didn't move. I picked her up and sat her on my lap, at which time she began swallowing repeatedly , her hands started shaking and she began grabbing/clawing at my shirt. It was at this time that we had our neighbor come over to watch Brian and Kelly and we headed off the the ER at Newton Wellesley Hospital.

On the ride to the hospital Kate looked to the left only, and seemed to be fighting to stay awake/conscious. She didn't respond to her name and didn't respond to my pinching her leg. Kate was taken in right away at the ER, and the nurses and doctors began working on her. Kate never spoke, and never cried when the IV was put into her arm (that was tough to watch), but rather moved around a little and appeared quite agitated. For about an hour and 15 minutes Kate just lay there moving her tongue around or swallowing, while blankly looking around. There were a few times she said something completely appropriate i.e., "That's MY bear!" when the nurse took her bear away, and she made some purposeful movements i.e., wiping her nose with her hand, and smiling at the nurse. However, at around 10:30 or so something began to change and for the next 15 minutes Jeff and I witnessed Kate have a grand mal seizure. It was horrible. She was chewing on her mouth (the doctor wiped some pink saliva from her), her eyebrows were going up and down, her body was shaking, and she was making this very "guttural" type noise. After 5 doses of various seizure medications, the seizures stopped and we were told Kate would be transferred to the pediatric ICU at Mass General in Boston. In all, Kate had been seizing for approximately 3 hours. During our time at the ER all blood work, toxin reports and the CT Scan all came back normal.

I went with Kate by ambulance to Mass General and Jeff followed. While in the ICU and during our entire time at Mass General all tests came back negative with the exception of the EEG, which showed abnormal brain activity in the left temporal lobe. This lobe was most likely the focal point of the seizure and was working at a slower rate than the rest of the brain, as it was trying to recover from the seizure, per neurology report. At one point there was a question that there was a viral infection in the spinal fluid, but that turned out to be false. Kate was put on a seizure medication in the hospital that we are continuing to give her now at home. At this time the neurologists believe that Kate had a "complex febrile seizure" but are not completely sure of the cause. Kate did not have a temp at the time of the initial seizure but upon continued checks it was found that her temp continued rising throughout the day. Kate is on a seizure med because of the length of time the seizure lasted, and the abnormal EEG reading. We have a follow-up appointment with neurology in Feb.

When Kate FINALLY spoke late on Sunday night, after waking up from her drug induced sleep, she said to me, "Mom, I can talk again." I have to tell you that all I wanted all day long was to hear my daughter speak and cry again, and hearing her speak was the most beautiful thing in the whole world. I had these terrible visions of "losing" Kate to this catatonic state she had been in all day, and I can't even begin to tell you what kind of state I would be in right now if Kate was still not talking. After she spoke the first time she said, "I want to go home and I want to see Daddy." I told Kate we had to stay and that Daddy would be back tomorrow, to which she replied, "Well, I've had a very yucky day." That's my Kate! As Kate began getting more happy and even more herself over the next few days she continued saying amazing things. When she woke up the first morning out of the ICU she said to Jeff, "Thank you for my crib. It's incredible." And when Jeff picked us up to take us home on Wed night Kate said to him, "I'm very excited!"

In the midst of this "nightmare" of sorts, I found many things to be thankful for and so many things to appreciate. This experience allowed Jeff and I to spend some very special time with both Brian and Kate, individually. Our life is so crazy busy (well really, just crazy most of the time), that we don't get to take the two older children out alone. With the help of family and friends (God Bless our parents and neighbors) I was able to take Brian out for a doughnut and chocolate milk on Tuesday, and then Jeff took him to McDonald's on Wednesday. And Jeff and I both got to spend so much time just holding and loving and appreciating our little Kate. I don't mean to "diss" Kelly in all this, but she gets A LOT of attention! We also, got to meet some of the most wonderfully caring people I've ever met, at both Newton Wellsely and Mass General. The view from Kate's room at Mass General was incredible, it looked over the Charles and you could see for miles. On Tuesday night I woke up to see the moon right in the middle of the clear black sky, and the water of the Charles sparkling down below. However, I am most grateful and blessed to have had all of you praying for us, and telling other people to pray for our family. Of course I would rather this had never happened at all, but had it not, I (we) would never have had the gift of all your love and prayers.

Jeff and I believe that life is a gift, and that Kate and Brian and Kelly are all gifts that God has given to us. Thank you all so much for looking to God and asking Him to take good care of this little life that he created.

Kate is peacefully sleeping right now with her roommate, best buddy, and brother, Brian, and she's holding her bear and blanket that went with her everywhere throughout her whole ordeal.

Please know that you are all in our prayers and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

God Bless,

Colleen, Jeff, Brian, Kelly and most importantly Kate Kate :-)