Seizures! Yay!

Ford started having seizures at 2am this morning, prompting an overwhelming flood of people into our room to administer heavy doses of sedatives and paralytics. The seizures lasted for about 2 hours until the aforementioned intervention brought them under control. Because he was so heavily knocked out they had to intubate him, so we are back in the ICU. Tuesday's voluntary trip back to the hospital with only a mild concern about a loose suture has been spinning out of control over the last 48 hours (beginning with Ford going back on oxygen support yesterday because a blood test showed his hemoglobin was unexpectedly high - which, if left to rise too high turns your blood into a thick sludge - Ford's bone marrow is trying to compensate for his low oxygen saturation by producing higher levels of hemoglobin, which carry oxygen through the blood). So much for our two day stay. By 5am they had Ford stabilized on the ventilator, were busy with the now routine comedy of attempts at getting a working IV in him, and by 6 he was being wheeled into radiology for a CT scan of his brain to try and figure out what the problem might be.

It's worth pointing out that Dr. Human had scheduled a CT scan on Ford's head for today anyway, just as a precaution, to rule out anything going on upstairs that might explain his persistant irritability. It's not unusual for kids who've had the 'Glen' surgery to experience intense head-aches from the higher pressures in their veins. And apparently a potential side effect of the anti-coagulant treatment that Ford has been getting for months now is bleeding in the brain, so that is also something they were hoping to 'not see.' Despite being a bit frightened by the prospect of something like that going wrong we were reassured by the Laurie, the CNS, that everything would likely be fine as Ford was not exhibiting any clinical signs of brain trauma - aka, seizures.

So. Now he is.

Just got an update from the intensivist while I was writing this that they did see some bleeding on the left side of his brain under the CT scan but that they weren't sure yet what was causing it. Neurology, Neurosurgery, Cardiology, and Hematology are all apparently clustered around the computer watching the pictures and trying to sort it out. So, suspicions are potentially being confirmed here that it is a small bleed (or subarachnoid hemorrhage) as a result of him being overly anti-coagulated, but it might also be a venous sinus thrombosis, which is the result of having too little anti-coagulant (compounded perhaps by Ford's thick, hemoglobin heavy blood). From what i gathered, the bleeding isn't too bad and they aren't thinking of a surgical intervention at this point. They're just going to let him wake up and then wait and watch.

Rounds sure will be interesting today. If the ICU staff lets us in.

We sure enjoyed our two week holiday from the hospital.