Big boy had his first seizure in slightly over a year last night, and he puked all over his favorite Winnie the Pooh blanket ("Pooh blankey") today. He's a very sick little boy. Grammas Sandy and Marcia have thankfully been here to help us through this time. Our house is on lockdown so Baby Abby doesn't get anything, since she can't take anything if she does get sick.
Bradley is such a big boy now that it's totally different watching him have a seizure than it was when he was a baby or even just two years old. The horrific gray color still comes. He still blows bubbles and the saliva drips down the side of his mouth. He still sounds as if he is struggling to breathe. He still clenches his hands tight.
But now he looks up in the tonic stage of the seizure (when he just stares up into space) with much bigger eyes that we know understand so much more in lucid moments. Because he has so much more to him, so much more of him leaves when he seizes. During the tonic stage and after the clonic stage (when he actually seizes), I (Dad) kept asking him questions, often waking him up to take his fever reducing medicine and ask him if he was okay. He couldn't or wouldn't answer. His sleep is filled with minor aftershocks to his system, his fists clenching and his body taking unnaturally deep breaths. I got no good sleep at all.
Bradley loves to answer questions, as part of his ever more complicated personality. Like, for instance, when he recently got a White Sox shirt from his grandparents. I said, "Oh, my goodness, what is that?" He said, with a big grin, "I have no idea." He laughed that inhaled laugh when he knows he's said something hilarious. Then, he wanted to tell everyone about how he said, "I have no idea." So, he asked everyone, "What is that?" hoping someone would ask him the question again so he could give his funny answer.
When Bradley stops answering questions, we have to have faith that he will soon answer questions in his own inimitable, silly way again. It was a relief when we got the first "yeeeah" in response to "Are you doing okay?" From there he became his old self during the day again, only to succumb later to vomiting, more fever and lethargy.
I asked him this morning and during the day what he remembers happening during his seizure. He said: "There were Cheerios balloons with a stick on it that flew away above the house. Then I went 'wah, wah, wah' and took a nap." Pretty accurate, actually, on the parts other than the Cheerios (only he will ever know if that is accurate).
The doctor I took him to today also asked him what happened. He told the same story and said that he also "went in the water, and went swimming and did all the strokes - backstroke, frontstroke, floatstroke, walkstroke..." The doctor looked at me (Daddy) for an explanation. I told him what I thought he was talking about -- that he saw circles of light from a rush of blood to his head and thought they were Cheerios.
I had an out of body experience when I was a young boy, too. I fainted from dehydration on a soccer field during soccer practice in the fourth grade. Before I passed out, I yelled to my teammate (and current Facebook acquaintance) Chris Hicks to help me. I told him I had "lobsters in my shoes." It was likely the blood rushing to my feet. When I came to, I remember seeing myself from above the earth, swooping down towards my body. I saw myself near an ambulance on the field, with my shoes off and paramedics and others all around me. It was exactly how things were when I returned.
Cheerios and lobsters lead to swimming pools in the sky. We pray and hope everyone comes home safely.
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