Panic in the Garage

We spent the morning packing and preparing for our big trip. We got out the door in plenty of time and everything was going swimmingly until we arrived in the parking garage at the airport. KayTar started sqwaking from the backseat, which is pretty odd for her. When Josh took her out of the car, we both knew something was wrong. Her eyes were rolling around in her head, her head was tilted, and she wasn't aware of anything. I can't explain this moment to you. We both (even Josh the rock) panicked. We are about to unpack the car to get on a shuttle to go to the airport to get on a plane for a 2 hour flight. And yet here is our baby having a seizure, or whatever it is. This is a key moment. We freeze. Josh says "I guess we aren't going." For some reason, maybe because this "vacation" is actually in part, a conference for Josh's job, maybe because I couldn't stand the thought of losing this vacation when we were so close to getting away- I was the one to calm him down and take charge....this never happens. Never. I grabbed his blackberry and called the pediatrician. Of course it is Sunday, so I get the answering service, who pages the nurse, who informs me that my doctor is not on call this weekend. She offered to page Dr. OnCall, but we declined. We've done that before...by the time we are done explaining months of testing to Dr. OnCall, crisis has been averted...or he has something helpful to say like "Gosh, I don't know." I beg the nurse to page our doctor, she does, but explains she probably won't answer. She didn't answer. But while we were waiting on the call, we decided to proceed....hoping it would pass and life would go on, like it tends to do, while simultaneously hoping for the pediatrician to answer our call. Neither really happened, but because we were so far into the process of going, we just stayed the course.

This was a weird episode (like any of this is "normal"). She came in and out of it several distinct times. It was still similar though...eye rolling, head tilting, altered state of awareness. This time there was no pain, but she didn't seem to have the total drunken baby thing going either. I think today was the most "typical" seizure behavior we've seen...but it is all so closely related. Variations of the same. They were close together and very pronounced for about an hour, and then tapered off...but she wasn't back to herself until she woke up after the plane landed, roughly 3 hours after it all began. Its like her brain forgets how to function until she falls asleep and "reboots".

So tomorrow I will be calling the pediatrician, to let her know, and I suppose I'll get those pesky MRI results while I'm at it. Who are we kidding, I'm not strong enough to call and NOT ask about the results.

On a slightly different note, I changed my voicemail message to the following before leaving: "This is the Tar residence. We are currently out of town. If you are a doctor or doctor's office calling in reference to KayTar, please call me on my cell phone at XXX-XXX-XXXX. Thank you." How weird is my life?