Friday, September 30th was one of those days that feels like a year packed into 24 hours.
It started out with a heavy duty dream early in the morning. Basically the dream was this: a man kept going ahead of me fixing everything from potholes in the road (smoothing my way) to things around the house. Yet I was either ignoring him or giving others credit for all he was doing for me, without me ever asking this person to do anything. Strangely my behavior didn't anger him, he just kept running ahead fixing my way, until finally, at the end, I realized what was going on, the man was God and I started crying "I love you" over and over.
I was able to sleep in a bit because Chris had taken the day off work to go with me to my doctor's appointment and help prepare for our Michaelmas Party. When I came downstairs, all the boys were all heading out the door to go on a bike ride "through the woods" per Jared's request. It was odd for Jared to propose such an outing. They had a great time and I stayed home catching up on odds and ends and enjoying the quiet time alone.
Shortly after they came back, our friend Christina arrived to watch the boys and I left them with the task of making a poster for "Pin the Tail Feather on the Goose" for the Michaelmas Party that night. They made that and three "other" posters as I later found out. We then left for my doctor's appointment.
Chris came along on my doctor's visit because it included a sonogram to see how big Amber was. They couldn't get a clear profile picture because she was moving and grooving so much. However, they did notice that she has hair and hair on a sonogram is rather funny looking :-) The estimate from the sonogram was 7lb 2oz but my OB said that had to be low. The only thing strange about the appointment was for the first time in my life I had high blood pressure. Chris thinks it was all the talk about putting bows in Amber's hair :-). However, in a really cute, loving way, he wasn't taking it lightly and would have me sit and relax as much as he could the rest of the day. He really wants her to make it to his birthday, and he worries about me enough as it is.
After the appointment, we took advantage of being alone and went out for a quick lunch date at Tijuana Flats. No hot sauce for me, too risky, as hot sauce is known to induce labor. When we got home the boys had eaten lunch and completed their art projects. Christina stayed around to help me organize (or at least I directed her and Chris in organizing) all the clothes issues; ie. find Lance's clothes for Jared, Jared's for Titus, get down Titus' clothes to find neutrals for Amber; get all of the other baby stuff for Amber out of the attic; put all the clothes Titus' had outgrown up in the attic and finally find someplace to put Amber's clothes. You get the idea, right? whew... By the time all this was done, it was time for everyone to get ready to go to the Michaelmas Party.
Michaelmas is historically one of the four days in Europe in the past when servants were paid, and it was often combined with a harvest festival. I came across it reading Jane Austen books, and it always seemed Michaelmas was the time of the year when characters in the books looked for something good to happen. It has a lot of interesting folklore associated with it, but for us, it is just a great time to be with all of our friends in a time of fun, fellowship and food.
When we arrived to setup the room, Chris sat me against a wall with my back to the door and my feet up, only allowing me to supervise the setup process. Our friends started rolling in and good times were had by all. I adore Michaelmas, its so nice to see all our friends in one place together. They are all so unique, and in most cases have no connection with each other beside being our friends. It is amazing to watch how both the adults and kids mingle as if they were old friends.
Shortly after dinner, I moved to another table to talk with some friends, when Chris walks up behind me and announces he needs everyone's attention. I look back and say "I'm about to be embarrassed aren't I?". His simple reply with a wry smile was "Yes", and he continued on. He had gone into cahoots with a couple of my friends to combine Michaelmas with a Baby Shower for Amber. It had been sixteen years since he has successfully pulled off surprising me. I was totally clueless, didn't notice any of the near misses throughout the night and was impressed what they had done to pull it all off. It was wonderful, I had all I could do not to cry by the kindness of the act by everyone.
After the shower, I needed to get up for a while and walked outside with a friend to see the kids and pass out the souvenir kites. I ran into Jared and something seemed odd, so I put my hand on his chest and was a little concerned he might be having an SVT. He is a-symptomatic when this occurs so its sometimes hard to tell without the monitor. It was near time to leave, so we all packed up and headed home. When we got home I asked Chris to run upstairs and get the monitor. I was crushed to find out I was right, his pulse was 180.
One of Jared's cardiac conditions is called "Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome" which is what causes him to SVT. SVT is simply a neuron misfiring in the heart muscle that causes the heart to beat too fast, if left untreated, the condition can be fatal. The key is to catch it early in order to stop it (the longer it continues, the harder it is to stop) and decrease potential damage to the heart. I asked Jared if he noticed when it started and we ascertained it was probably around 7pm. So we called his cardiologist and began trying all the "tricks" in ours and our cardiologist's bag.
Prior to six weeks ago (August 18th), Jared had not had an episode in over two years. Though the EKG said differently, as a mom I was starting to feel confident that God had made it go away. When the episode happened six weeks ago, I was a little crushed but we were able to convert him at home. The conversion process isn't fun, but in my eyes its always better than the ER. Conversion is basically finding a way to get the heart to "reset" to a natural rhythm. When it had happened two years ago, all we had to do was put him to sleep. It had been many years since we had to do more. However, when the SVT occurred on August 18th, it was in the middle of the day. Thankfully, it was during a day when my good friend Mae was over with her kids for our joint piano lessons; beside being a great friend she's also a nurse. First we tried to get him to rest, and per the doctor's instructions double-dosed him with one of his drugs, and when that didn't work we had to start a Vagal maneuver on him. During all this time, Chris was biking home as fast as he could. I HATE Vagaling. I know we shouldn't say we hate things but in this case I have no other word to use. One of the Vagal maneuvers is putting your child's face in a bucket of ice water for 4 seconds. Jared was too young to remember the last time we'd had to do this, so I tried to sound cheery, and told him what we needed to do. I told him to pretend he was a Penguin from Diego hunting for fish in a bucket of water. He was all game until his head hit the water, then it was all over. He was rightfully scared and resistant. I hugged him and told him I understood but we had to do this. Eventually I told him I would put head in at the count of three and I had to shove my sons head under water against great resistance. Then I cuddled him close as he cried and I tried to comfort him. Chris ran in right then and when we checked he had finally converted. We had avoided the ER, but after the boys were in bed there was a lot of crying from the adults in the house.
So here we were again only 6 weeks later in the same position. However, this time Jared knew what was up and he wanted nothing to do with putting his face in an ice bucket. Lance being a great big brother even put his head in once to encourage Jared to try. Jared was not willing but nothing else had worked so Chris had to force him. Chris was breaking his own heart in the process as he had to repeatedly push Jared's face into the bucket with Jared crying, screaming and trying to squirm away. I sat behind the door praying and crying for both of them. Unfortunately, this time to add insult to injury, even Vagaling did not work. He fell asleep in our bed after this and I was hoping he might convert when he went to sleep. In the mean time, Chris called the doctor to report back our lack of success. The doctor said we were out of time and tricks we had to go to the ER. Waking your sleeping child to take him to the ER was just as heart wrenching as the Vagal maneuver. Before we woke him, I called a few close friends to ask for prayer and I was nearly hysterical. Being only two weeks away from delivering, I'm sure my hormones were not helping any. I then got it together, we woke him and headed to the hospital. My father-in-law who had been away on vacation had arrived that evening for the Michaelmas party, so at least the rest of the boys could stay sleeping.
When we arrived at the ER, people kept assuming we were there for me and at the wrong entrance. I wonder why? ;-). When we entered, the place was packed and there was a line at a registration desk with no one even there to help and no one at the triage desk either. Chris took one look at this, saw the signs for the "Children's ER", said "I am NOT waiting for this", and walked right through security and up to the nurses desk carrying Jared the whole way. He told the nurse his son was in SVT, which caused everybody to jump into action. I had waited in the lobby, just in case we had to wait in line, but after Chris didn't come back for a while I worked my way back too. When I got there Jared and Chris were in a room with about six other medical people, they were hooking him up to monitors and starting an IV line. Jared was very brave and didn't get upset about the line at all. Then Nurse "Ines" looks at Chris and I and recalls details about us being their about five years ago with Jared, Doctor "Jan" starts to recall it as well. Sure enough this was the exact same doctor and nurse that had treated Jared the last time he was in the ER almost five years ago, and they remembered how things had proceeded.
Before trying the Adenosine, they wanted to try some Vagal maneuvers again, starting with some of the easier ones, but then having to move on to the ice water. They were all so calm and reassuring, but the ice water scares Jared
immensely. They tried it a few more times in trade for some ice cream, but the only results were a very wet bed and a very scared Jared. Jared is a very strong kid and recovered quickly. I think he realizes everyone is trying to help him. The stubborn part of him will only allow some things to be tried and nothing else. This left Adenosine as the next option.
Last time we were there, the drug did not work, and as they were preparing for using the paddles, when Jared fell asleep and his heart rhythm converted to back to normal (or God converted
him, however you want to put it).
My understanding is the drug, has to make it to the heart in less than six seconds to have a chance at working and they can only try the drug a limited number of times. On Friday night, they were down to the last try again. This time they put a split-cock on the IV and Nurse Ines and Dr. Jan pushed through two doses back to back. Chris was holding Jared's hand this whole time and everyone was saying encouraging words, while we stared at the monitor to see if it had worked this time. Their was a sigh of relief and lots of smiles around the room when the heart monitor showed an interruption in his heart rhythm and his pulse went progressively down from 180 to 90. Jared was crying too at this point, apparently when it works it hurts. He was so brave. Adenosine, when it works, causes the heart to flatline for a few seconds. This can be disconcerting to a conscious patient, and is associated with angina-like sensations in the chest.
They kept him in the ER for monitoring for another 90 minutes, during which time the doctor had kept her word and brought him some ice cream. We were discharged and arrived home around 2am. When he converted, there are no words of thanks enough to God, the medical staff and the people all over the country we knew were praying at that moment for our precious little son. That brings me to the blessing part of this post.
BLESSINGS
- My dream set the stage for the day, reminding me God is always with us and working for our good whether we recognize it or not. He loves us immeasurably. An important thing to be remember later that day.
- Chris' job has been in limbo for a year, while waiting on the government to make a decision on which company was going to continue the contract he has worked on the past 10 years. September 30th they finally confirmed his company was going to keep the contract for another five years.
- The above is a double-blessing. First, having a job and second, being at the same company for 12 years, he has built up a lot of seniority and subsequently a lot of vacation time and that lets him take days off almost at will, like Friday.
- Chris being able to spend quality time in the morning enjoying time with his boys on a bike riding adventure.
- Having a high blood pressure reading at the doctor. If I had not, I might have ruined the surprise baby shower by being everywhere and talking to everybody like I normally am. Also, I would not have rested as much during the day and never had the energy to survive the night ahead. Ironically my BP is now back to normal.
- Having someone like Christina to watch the boys. Not only did it allow Chris to come with me to the appointment, it also allowed us some time together to charge up our relationship. This was also important later that night, to get though it calmly and in unity.
- A friend's baby girl fell asleep at the party. She said she knew that meant she would be up late that night. However, she said she used to get upset about things like that until she realized its all part of God's plan and just tries to find something she likes to do when her babies are up late. Knowing she was going to be up late that night, allowed me to call her and reach out to ask for prayers.
- Being connected in such a loving manner at the Michaelmas Party with our friends is what gave me the strength to call and ask for prayers that night. As it was revealed to us how many people had prayed for Jared that night, we were both greatly humbled and thankful knowing that only He can truly heal.
- Not being able to convert Jared at home. I think I had started to believe, after avoiding the hospital for five years, that we could control his condition ourselves. This was a gentle reminder that only He is in control.
- Having all the right people in place at the hospital. This has been the story of Jared's life. What are the odds of having the same nurse and doctor and having them remember you and the details of your son's case after five years?
- Having Chris for my husband and friend. Chris is usually very, very easy going and unassuming but at the hospital he was taking no prisoners and presented a force to be reckoned with. That allowed me to sit back, comforted in his love and leadership.
- Jared having two SVTs recently. It's a reminder what really matters and that we should never take a single moment in time for granted. I find myself cherishing all my children more and taking the time to stop what ever I'm doing to respect them as the priority they should be in my life.
