Maybe sending James off to school last week was too much for his body and immune system to handle. He seemed fine last week, and he seemed fine Monday when he went to school. But that changed Monday afternoon. His sats were all over the board and his heartrate was above 150. These are typical signs that James is fighting something. We normally like to see his sats (oxygen saturation of the blood) above 90 and his heartrate is normally around 110.
James slept good Monday night. Tuesday morning, he was breathing better and his heartrate was a bit lower than it had been, but we decided to keep him home from school just to keep an eye on him. He hadn’t given us a diaper in almost 12 hours, so Stacy made him pee. I don’t know how she does it, but she has this magical touch where she massages his bladder to get him to pee. His urine was a dark yellow, so we started giving him extra water. We also decided to hold off a bit on his food because past experience has shown that James digestive tract tends to slow down when he’s sick and he can’t handle the normal volume of his feeds.
Wednesday was much of the same. Just kept pumping fluids and giving him some food here and there. Although we hate when James is sick, there is one benefit. He doesn’t have any seizures. Stacy did not see a single seizure on Wednesday.
His seizures started to come back on Thursday, which meant that he was starting to feel better. Stacy noticed that his left eye was swollen, and there was a little pocket of something in the corner. Because James was still a bit sick, she didn’t want to travel 45 minutes with him to his regular eye doctor, but was able to get him in to see an eye doctor a few blocks from us. The optometrist said that James’ eye looks fine and thinks it might be an allergy. He recommended some over the counter eye drops and see if it goes away in a few days. Stacy was wondering if maybe it was just his eye that was bugging James this week and not an illness. Like the rest of us, when James gets sick, he has discolored discharge out of his nose. He didn’t have that this time…it was all clear.
Friday he was feeling much better:
Saturday he was still doing good so Stacy decided to take him for a walk because the weather was so nice, and she figured some fresh air would be good for him. After their 3-mile walk, he was pooped!
James was having another good day today so he should be going back to school tomorrow.
In other news, James is scheduled to get a VNS (vagus nerve stimulator) implanted in about a week. We’re hoping and praying that this thing gets rid of these seizures once and for all.
