Ellie Sue had quite a week!

Alrighty, I think sufficient time has passed for me to tell you a little bit about one of the scariest days of my life.  Being a mama isn't for the faint of heart!! 

The girls, Ellie and a big kid, took the golf cart around the neighborhood, like they do on a daily basis in the summer!!  Todd was outside weedeating when the golfcart drove back up from the two girls riding in the neighborhood.   When they got back,  Ellie was unconscious in the floorboard of the golfcart, with her head near the gas pedal.  The friend had to pick her up off the road and put her in the cart to get her home.  That is about the extent of the details of the accident.  When we got brief moments of Ellie waking up, she had no recollection of anything that had happened to her. We now only know that she hit the asphalt hard enough to fracture her skull. 

I was at work, still, with a dead phone.  I had swung out by the garden to check on how things were doing, when one of my PTs came RUNNING from the clinic to me, waving his phone and saying, "It's Todd.  Ellie has been in an accident!".  Talk about the blood draining from my face!!

He knew very few details.  He said, "She's lying on the front seat of the truck, and I can't keep her awake.  She isn't talking.  We are on our way to the emergency room.  Meet us there."

Ellie was in and out with complaints of a headache.  She had nausea and felt dizzy.  She just kept saying, "I don't feel good"  and couldn't stop crying.  She was, at times, WHITE as a ghost!!  And her eyes were rolling around in her head, like she couldn't focus on her.... WHEN we MADE her wake up!!

You can believe I was in GO mode.  I beat them to the hospital and got everything set up so when she arrived, we could get right back and get some scans going to see what was going on in her brain.  Ha.  That just SOUNDED like a plan.  When they got there, we still had to wait in the waiting room, with psycho mama trying to rouse up some action, indicating that my baby could be bleeding in her brain, and we needed some ACTION, cause my baby girl was NOT alert.

We finally got into a room, and FINALLY got monitored for basic vital signs.  She had a HUGE knot on her head and a HUGE ankle with scratches up her legs as well.  One of my therapists, who does a lot of the neurological signs at work came by, and she tested Ellie for basic neurological integrity.  (For anyone who knows, she had a positive Babinski sign and had clonus in her right ankle... these are NOT good signs with regards to brain integrity!!)  WE were getting mixed messages on whether or not we should let her sleep or keep her up.  So... we tried constantly to keep her up. This mama also knew just enough to know that we were dealing with a very serious situation.  She was sent for CT scan of the brain, and xray came to check the rest of her body, including checking for internal injuries.  Did I mention she was also wearing a cervical collar in the chance of a spinal cord injury to her neck?!

When the ER doc came around, he used his little pinlight and didn't get a response (no pupilary light reflex!), so he said, "I think we should transfer her to another hospital where there is a pediatric neurosurgeon and a pediatric intensive care unit."  Ok.  I'm officially freaking out.  Internally.  Externally, I think I was maintaining my cool.  Todd would disagree.  He kept looking at me and mouthing, "Stop.  Just relax."  I was needing things to move along a little more speedily than they actually were!!  By now, we know she has a non-displaced (good thing) skull fracture.  And we knew she had no internal injuries.  The C spine was cleared as well.

We rode in an ambulance to the neighboring hospital, and I had to ride in the front.  I asked the paramedic riding in the back with Ellie to please engage her constantly to try and keep her up.  She did.  For about the first 10 minutes.  The last 5 minutes, I looked back, and Ellie was out again.  I was a nervous wreck.

Once at the other hospital, I pretty much immediately felt better.  I LIKED it, actually, when the experienced nurse said, "I need everyone out of the room until we get her settled."  YES!!  Take charge!!  Get my baby cared for.  Do what needs to be done!!

As for the hospitalist in PICU, he was FAB.U.LOUS!!  He maintained a nice calm demeanor, was thorough in his explanation, and assured us that actually, Ellie NEEDED to sleep, so her brain could rest.  And with that, and vital signs being monitored, I could let her sleep, and rest my brain a little too.

Ellie didn't wake up again until the next day.  Now, remember, my phone was dead!  And Becky, the therapist who had first visited us, asked if it was ok for her to post on Facebook.  I said, yes, because the more people praying at that time the better, I thought.  And then the texts started POURING into Todd's hone.  Yep... from his mom, my mom, my dad, etc.  Holy COW... had we failed to tell them?!  Todd initially wanted to hold off on calling them, because we weren't sure what was actually going on, and he wanted to wait until we could tell them something more definitive.  I hope, by now, they've forgiven us for finding out about it from their friends who read it on Facebook!

The next day, Ellie woke up mid morning, and was able to talk and do simple math facts (YES... psycho mom was testing the various lobes of her brain!!).  She was not very perky, needless to say, but she WAS alert and seemed to have all of her faculties.  The night before, she was also showing signs of increased muscle tone in her hand, with her thumb tucked inside her palm, and every time another therapist friend of mine, who graciously came by to help me "work on" my baby girl, would straighten out her fingers, they'd pull back into flexion.  (You with me here, Maggie?!  TONE!!  Scary!)  But on day two... NOTHING!

I can think, well, you know...  once the acuity of the initial brain damage subsided, the neurological signs went away.  OR.. I can just say, as I have been, SHE WAS HEALED!

God touched my baby's brain and body, as He heard His children cry out on her behalf.

I asked, on Facebook, for anyone who had prayed for my girl to let me know where they were from, as we would be "homebound" (sorta) for the next two weeks, and would need some "chill" things to do.  I wanted to pin a map with all the prayer warriors.  Well, once I saw various COUNTRIES represented, and the count got over 700, I wasn't so sure we could pin that many!!  Any takers on that project?!  ha

The neurosurgeon thought we should stay one more night.  And so we did.

All of the pictures in tonight's blog post are from the following day when we got to go home.  Ellie had NUMEROUS cards made for her, from her classmates at school, her peers at art class, and friends she'd made who do therapy at my office.  She was a very loved little girl!

As we were walking out of the hospital, I glanced down and saw this.  I KNOW we were being attended to.  Angels were standing guard!!  We were all surrounded by God's grace!  And right in the vein of what I've been claiming all year, ELLIE LIVES IN HIGH FAVOR!!

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us.  Thank you to everyone who took care of her.  Thank you to all who came by or called.  And thank you, LORD, for sparing my girl's brain from injury!  We are just so, so grateful!!

MO