Scary. No, make that terrifying!

Many thanks to everyone praying with us for sweet Miles.  I know that I have given a less than comprehensive summary via my Facebook updates, so for those of you trying to figure out what the heck is going on besides just knowing that Miles is very sick - here's a quick recap of the last 3 days.

Monday at 4:20 a.m., our monitor for Knox's room went off.  Jeremy was taking a turn and went up to soothe him back to sleep.  Ten minutes later Jeremy came into our room with Knox in his arms and told me that we needed to go up and check on Miles because he was making weird noises in his bedroom.  Miles had gone to bed earlier that evening as normal with regular cold-like symptoms (runny nose, the beginnings of gunky eyes), but no fever.  When I reached his door, I could hear him whimpering, a sound I'd never heard him make before.  I found him in his crib seizing with his eyes rolled off to the side.  He would not respond to my voice or my touch, and he could not focus his eyes on me at all.  We reached Baylor-Grapevine emergency a few minutes later, and they immediately began giving him anti-seizure medication. We learned that protocol on someone with a seizure is to give them the anti-seizure drug until either they stop seizing or stop breathing.  Miles had seized for a minimum of 45 minutes, and his respiratory function became so depressed that they had to intubate him (put a breathing tube in).  His temperature upon arrival at the ER was 104.5, and we learned that it is not completely uncommon for babies and toddlers to have seizures when a fever spikes like this.  It's not the height of the fever that causes seizures, but rather the rapid rate at which it rises.  These are referred to as febrile seizures.  A typical febrile seizure can last only a few minutes or even 15 minutes in some cases.  The doctor in the ER told us that anything over 30 minutes gets complicated and he didn't feel comfortable about assuming the seizure was the result of a spike in temperature.  It was possible that his high temperature was a result of the seizure. We were asked every question in the book about what he might have gotten into, was there any trauma that could have caused it, etc.  They decided that Miles needed to be seen by a children's specialist, so he was tranported to Children's  in Dallas, which is where he is tonight.

Miles spent Monday in intensive care, heavily sedated to withstand every test imaginable - MRI, spinal tap, EEG, bacterial cultures, and viral testing.  As of today, all his neurological tests came back normal.  Praise God!  Because of this, they are calling this a complicated febrile seizure.  But he has now developed pneumonia in his lungs.  He was moved out of ICU late yesterday afternoon despite fighting fever all day.  We were hoping we could bring him home today, but we learned that he has some inflamation in his lungs that is unacceptable for discharge.  He has a fierce cough, but this little boy is fighting this thing like crazy and it's wearing him out.  We see glimpses of our "into everything," ornery little boy now and then, but he tires out quickly and finds a lot of comfort in the laps of mommy and daddy.  And I am perfectly fine with that.

As far as I can tell, the prognosis is that Miles has an increased risk of having more febrile seizures.  This usually lasts from age 6 months to 5 years.  The neurologists are not placing him at a high risk of developing epilepsy later in life since the MRI and EEG were clear.

There are so many other details I'm leaving out, but I'm anxious to get back to the hospital after coming home to take a shower and put little boy Knox to bed.  But this is the long and short of it I guess.  Thanks to all for sending us your thoughts and well wishes.  We still have a sick little boy on our hands, but it seems as though the scariest part is behind us.  That's what we are trusting.  And no matter what, we know God was and is in control, and we find rest in that.

More updates and pictures to come,