Post-traumatic stress

I was really hoping not to have another post featuring one of my girls in a hospital gown. But life doesn't always go as planned.

The good news is that everything is fine. Getting to fine is another story.

When I woke up Thursday morning, I had no idea anything like this would happen. J got Little A up and put her in bed with me. I was being lazy and sleeping in since I was planning to go the gym in the morning and didn't need a shower beforehand. He took her downstairs while I brushed my teeth and I heard him saying, "Why can't you walk?" I immediately walked downstairs to find our active little girl unable to take any steps without falling to one side or backwards. She stumbled like a drunk and we looked at each other with real worry. After calling our pediatrician, we were instructed to head straight to the ER.

You can imagine the jumble of thoughts that were going on. As we drove there (she threw up on the way, which increased my worry), I wondered if this memory would be burned in my mind as the start of something awful. It was a terrifying thought. One that didn't go away no matter how hard I pushed it. When we got to the wonderful children's hospital up the road from us, they saw us right away. We showed them how she couldn't walk and they examined her, took urine and finally sent in a neurology specialist. The worst case scenarios flashed through my mind as he told us that he would like to admit us and do an MRI. Honestly, looking back I'm not sure how I held it together, but I did.

I was in denial as we were admitted and the nurse asked if we'd ever stayed overnight before. "Oh, we're not staying overnight," I said. "Well, I think you are," he answered. And we were. Our MRI was scheduled for early the next morning and it set in that this was not being taken lightly. As the day went on, Little A began to walk better and wasn't falling at all. This was a good sign, but they decided to do the MRI anyway just to rule anything out. As hard as it was to see my little girl go through this ordeal, it does give us peace of mind to know that 500 pictures of her (Einstein) brain later, she was declared fine. They said it was likely the after-effect of a virus or cold that can sometimes happen in toddlers. We were sent home with no restrictions.

I feel like we dodged a bullet. Somehow, we were one of the lucky ones. You hear stories all the time about a weird symptom like Little A had, and it being the sign of a rare and serious disease. To be told that it was nothing was like winning the biggest lottery of our life.

To be honest, I feel like I've already learned and taken to heart the lesson to appreciate your loved ones and not take health for granted. In spite of the daily grind, I feel like I remember this every day. In fact, more and more I'm starting to wonder if I'd been living under a rock for the first 30 years of my life, because wow, bad stuff happens a LOT in this world. Its unavoidable and scary and it sucks. I guess I was really blessed to have not seen a lot of that growing up. I can thank my parents for shielding me and letting me live a pretty worry-free life.

Now...well, being a parent seems to be about constant worry. As I followed Little A around the playground today, I thought how things can change forever in an instant. She could fall off a slide or trip on a rock or be snatched by a stranger. No matter how hard I try, I can't keep her safe forever. But dammit, I am going to try. Wouldn't you?