January 18, 2009

Kerstin's Brain - Part III


Continued from Part II

Kerstin didn't remember much about the ambulance ride to Portland Medical Center. He was very tired and had to lay on the gurney during the trip, so he slipped in and out of sleep. Joseph travelled with me and they had a conversation, but Kerstin didn't recall it. In the meantime, Karen and I (Ilana) returned home to fetch Alden and relieve Ben. I nursed Alden and changed his diaper, then bundled him up and loaded him in Karen’s car. Alden was amused by all the activity and happy to be allowed to stay up so late past his bedtime. We arrived at Maine Medical in Portland around 10:30, just a few minutes after the ambulance delivered Kerstin to his room. My Dad met us in the parking lot and we all entered together. Ben delayed his trip to make us some dinner and then brought it down to us in the hospital.

Dad and I stood watch outside the room waiting for the doctor to arrive. In the meantime, Karen, Joseph, and Ben set up shop in a small waiting room outside the ward and took turns checking up on Kerstin, changing diapers/feeding the baby and scarfing down some dinner. Joseph introduced the "Elevator Game" to Alden, who was quite taken with it. This game involved riding up and down in the service elevator. I was grateful to have all this family around so that I could pass off Alden. I shudder to think of what I would have done without them. A baby adds a new layer of stress on top of the cortisol-soaked layer cake that is hospitalization of a loved one. I don't think I would have been able to focus on Kerstin's needs or function at all if it weren't for the fact that I knew that Alden was being cared for all this time.

At some point, while we were waiting for the doctor, Alden started making the milk sign. This was his first true signage and should have been cause for much jubilation, encouragement and reinforcement. I was too exhausted and scared to really respond properly to it and wasn't comfortable leaving Kerstin to feed Alden, so he got a jar of baby food with Joseph and Ben instead. Alden continued to do the milk sign intermittently for a week or so after the hospital incident, but has since stopped signing altogether. I think that because I didn't give him the proper reinforcement initially, I may have missed the sign language window of opportunity, which I really regret, but at the time, I just didn't know how to deal with everything happening all at once.

The doctor finally arrived sometime after 1 in the morning. My Dad and I met him in Kerstin's room. I recanted the whole tale to in as much gory detail as I could remember while the doctor performed some reflex tests on Kerstin and asked him a few questions. Kerstin was drifting in and out of sleep, but was lucid enough to answer a few questions and didn't struggle to find his words anymore. He'd also regained sensation in his arms and hands. Kerstin's doctor and my Dad brainstormed possible conditions, but none of them seemed satisfactory. The fact that Kerstin had lost sensation in both arms seemed to throw them, as did the fact that the entire episode lasted about 8 hours.

"Carotid dissection?"
"Not likely since both sides of his body went numb."
"Lyme disease?"
"He hasn't been bitten by a tick."
"How about Lupus?"
"No family history."

This exchange went on for about 10 minutes, but didn't lead to a satisfactory prognosis. Kerstin's doctor recommended that we wait for the results of the MRI. He felt that Kerstin's condition wasn't life threatening and recommended we run the MRI first thing in the morning when the technician normally arrives. We agreed that Kerstin seemed better (he was asymptomatic at this point) although he was extremely tired, so we left him alone to get some sleep and scheduled the MRI for the morning. We gathered in the waiting room around 1:30 AM to discuss our options. Should we stay in the hospital and sleep in the chairs? Not very easy to do with a baby who's already been up WAAAAY past his bedtime and who, while initially quite excited about this situation, was starting to get really cranky. Should we try to find a hotel? Might be hard to do at this hour. In the end, Joseph volunteered to stay behind with Kerstin and the rest of us drove home. My Dad followed us up to Gardiner and slept on our couch. We agreed to reconvene first thing in the morning and make plans to return to the hospital together for the impending MRI.

This is Kerstin's recollection of the evening:

When I arrived at Maine Medical Center in Portland, I was rolled into a room and more monitoring wires were attached to my chest, an air tube was put in my nose and an IV was put in my arm. I think the rest in the ambulance did me some good because I was feeling more lucid and able to talk with greater ease. A nurse and a doctor asked me some questions, which I think I answered correctly. They did not seem to think immediate action was needed and thought it best to let me get some sleep, my MRI would be the following morning. Scott, Ilana, Alden, Karen, and Ben came in to see me briefly before I drifted off. I don’t remember much of those conversations. Mostly general reassurances and good wishes.

Once I decided to sleep, most of the family decided to drive home. Joseph requested a cot at the side of my bed and spent the night at the hospital too. The doctor woke me up every two hours during the night to make sure my condition hadn’t declined. He would ask me a question like ‘what day is it’ (which I reckon is hard to answer when you just wake up whether your brain is failing or not) and test my reflexes. By morning I was not particularly rested, but more coherent and it seemed like my brain problem had lifted.

I was given a hospital breakfast which I shared with Joseph, and just hung out until they were able to schedule my MRI. The MRI started around 10:30 when I was wheeled to the radiology room in the basement. I was told the MRI machine was going to be loud, but anyone who has worked on a construction site would disagree with that description. I was worried about becoming claustrophobic in the MRI tube, but the tube was well lit and nicely ventilated, which made it a positive difference. The scans took about an hour and a half to do, and being still for that long was tricky, but not too difficult.

Ilana's Recollection:

We made it back to the Hospital shortly after Kerstin returned from his MRI. He seemed in good spirits and was back to himself, although he was still pretty sleepy. While we were waiting for the test results, Kerstin's bedside phone rang. It was Ashley, the ER nurse from Augusta. She had tracked Kerstin down and was calling to see how he was doing. She's such a sweetheart!!

We all waited for a few more hours for the results, passing the time playing the elevator game and pass the baby. Eventually a very friendly, grandfatherly Neurologist came in, said everything looked tip top and told us to go home and enjoy the holidays. It took another hour for the paper work to clear so the nurses could unhook Kerstin, but we finally made it out of there before the clock struck noon. My Dad left for home about a half an hour before Kerstin was cleared to go and before we realized that he still had Alden's car seat base in his car. After a few minutes of panic, we made a short detour across town to Babies-R-Us to get a new forward-facing seat, since he was almost due for an upgrade anyway. Kerstin dozed while we made our way North to Gardiner with Alden in the backseat, watching the world whizzing by his window for the very first time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We just got a forward-facing seat for Ro too. I think she likes it much better; she can see where she's going, she can see us, etc. She sits in it with her hands resting on the arms like she's in the control seat. Of course I freaked out when I discovered that she was NOT over 20 pounds (like we've assumed since 9 months when we weighed her in Fred Meyer) but just under 19. Oops. We already sent our infant seat to Joshua's cousin...