Halen's ER/Hospital Stay

I really thought Alex would be the first one we would be taking to the ER but I was wrong…Halen gets that honor. It all started on Friday when Halen woke up with a cold in eye. I had fought him all morning to let me keep cleaning it out. I gave him some cough/cold medicine around 10:30 and he & Alex played outside until about noon. When he came in, his eye looked bad again so I put him up on the bathroom counter so I could access his eye better. I told him I hoped that he didn't have pink eye (which has been going around lately) and told him I was going to call grandma to see what she thought I should do. I went to get my phone and he immediately started crying. I think he started getting worried that he would have to go to the dr. Within a few seconds, I heard everything on the bathroom counter crash and the door hit the wall. I knew he had fallen from the counter.

I got in the bathroom to find Halen laying on his right side with his head cocked back passed out. He wasn't breathing so I tried to straighten his neck out but he was so stiff I couldn't. Of course I panicked, but he's passed out a couple times before in his life and I'm a fainter too so I didn't panic like someone else might have. About a minute after he came to, he lost consciousness again for another 15-20 seconds. That's when I panicked. I had never seen anyone pass out twice in a row like that. I had Randy on the phone at the time so he tried to calm me down but I was still nervous. When he came to, he felt like he might throw up and he wanted to go to sleep. I wasn't sure if he had hit his head so I wouldn't let him sleep and just sat on the floor holding him for a while.

I had a dr appointment at 2:00 so I decided to take Halen with me to let the dr look at him. We just sat on the couch watching TV for the next hour or so so I could keep an eye on him until we left. When it was time to leave, he seemed like he was doing better and walked out to the car on his own. I noticed his eye was running again so I ran back into the house to get a tissue to wipe it and I got back just in time for him to pass out again. With him being in the backseat and being so stiff, I had a really hard time getting him laid out flat. He was only out for 15-20 seconds again but it seemed like forever. I helped him get into the front, reclined seat and headed to the dr.

Once I got Halen settled in a chair in the waiting room at the doctor's office, I went to go sign in. I glanced back at him as I got to the counter and I could tell he was going to go again so I ran back to him and laid him under his chair. It was all I could do not to yell for a dr or something because obviously something was going on. Randy got there not long after and carried Halen back to the room when we got called back. The nurse could see right away that something was going on with him and asked what happened. I think she sped up getting the dr in with us because of it. The dr came in and could see how pale Halen was and was pretty concerned. He told us just to take him right over to the ER. My appointment lasted all of 5 minutes...just long enough to hear the baby's heartbeat then we headed across the parking lot to the ER.

Once we got checked in, we had Randy’s parents come get Alex then waited for the dr. She was almost convinced that he was having seizures and not just passing out. They did a CT scan & EKG on him and ran some blood tests (the poor kid was so scared to have the blood draw but he was really brave). We had been there for about 2 hours when Halen needed to go the bathroom. He had only been back in bed for about 15 minutes when he passed out (or seized) again. We called the dr so she was able to see the last few seconds of it. That’s when she decided it would be better to admit him to the hospital for observation overnight. That didn’t go over very well with Halen either. It made me really sad that he was having to go through this. We tried to make the best of it and said he could have a sleepover with dad at the hospital and it would be ok. He tried so hard to be tough but I could tell he was really scared.

Hanging out in the ER

Halen got to ride in an ambulance to be transported to the old hospital where the pediatric ward is. He wanted dad to ride with him so I followed in the car. On the way to the parking lot, I ran into some friends who asked what I was doing there. As I was telling them, I started to break down and cry. It was the first time I allowed myself to feel scared. I got myself composed and drove over to the old hospital. My parents met me there and we went up to Halen’s room.

Once the dr came in, we went over the history with him and he said he would call Primary Children’s Hospital to talk to a neurologist and see if there was anything they thought he should do. While we waited for him to come back, grandma & grandpa Ogden brought Alex to visit. I think he was a little nervous being there and not knowing what was going on. When the dr came back, he said the neurologist wanted Halen to come to Primary Children’s to do an MRI sometime in the next week and he wanted him to start on some anti-seizure medicine. That wasn’t what we wanted to hear but we felt like we needed to cover all our bases to see what was going on.

While we had both grandpa’s at the hospital, they helped Randy give Halen a blessing. It’s so nice to know that I have such great men in our life who are worthy to use their priesthood when we need it. The grandparents left around 9:00 and may parents took Alex back to our house to get him ready for bed. I stayed with Halen & Randy for another hour. It was so hard to leave my little boy in that hospital. Needless to say, it was a restless night for me and Randy got hardly any sleep but Halen slept pretty well. I got there about 9:30 Saturday morning just as they were getting ready to do an EEG. Halen did really well during the test which required him to hold still for large chunks of time and follow the directions of the tech.

All hooked up for the EEG

Once the test was over, they were able to discharge us from the hospital and told us we could watch Halen at home just as well as they could there. We got home just after noon and he immediately went to acting normal and playing with Alex. He’s been fine ever since and we haven’t had an more episodes. The EEG came back normal. The dr said it doesn’t totally rule out a seizure disorder, but it makes it a lot less likely. We have the MRI scheduled for Friday at Primary Children’s so we’ll see how that goes. I don’t want to make Halen go through any more tests but I feel like we need to make sure we’ve done all we can to make sure there isn’t something deep down that’s going on. I’ll keep you posted on what we find out. This whole thing has really made me realize how precious our time together is.