Dr. Phil says "Get Real."

Meghann had a stroke. I had no idea at the time that children had strokes. I only thought that grandma’s and grandpa’s had strokes. Boy was I naive and ignorant.  Dr. Phil says “get real.” I got real extremely fast.  I was also about to receive a crash course about children who have strokes. I certainly did not care to take this course but here I was listening to the explanations of the doctor. Although I felt like everything up to this point had happen quickly it seem to be moving in slow motion as the doctor talked to me.  I remember watching the doctor's mouth move and I didn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth. I felt like I was listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher Wah Wah Wah Wah.

He used words like induced coma, cerebrovascular neurologist, vascular neurosurgeons, magnetic resonance imaging, paralysis, brain swelling, brain damage, memory loss and  etc. The list went on and on with technical terms that I had no idea how to pronounce. I tried to concentrate on what the doctor was telling me but I was having a difficult time comprehending everything. Not only did I need a medical degree, I was functioning on very little sleep.  I had spent a week prior to this day with a sick child and never stopped working. I went from one hospital stay to the larger one with the same clothes on my back. I had not had a restful night sleep in weeks. I was running on adrenaline and coffee.  

The doctors informed me that Meghann may lose the little motor function that she had before the stroke. I was optimistic and crushed at the thought of Meghann waking up to another set of challenges. It wasn’t fair. She had been through so much already in her short life.   Meghann was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when she was around 10 months old. She was nonverbal and considered nonambulatory.  She was in an early intervention class soon after her diagnosis. She worked very hard to get where she was before this stroke. She attended Easter Seals several days a week for Physical, Speech and Occupational therapy. I worked with her almost constantly. She was making such great developmental strides and now she would have to start all over.  I had confidence in Meghann that she would beat the odds and wake up. As the days went by  new tests were added daily. She didn’t seem to be responding to anything. She wasn’t even responding to pain. At first I thought not responding to pain was a good thing until I was informed that it was not good. Responding to pain is a sign that the patient is healing. It would of been great to have the internet back then to look up all this information. Well maybe not. It might of made things worse.

I  had a nurse tell me that the internet was a great thing however it could be a real challenge with people reading too much information. I always thought knowledge was power until I had this conversation with a nurse. I guess sometimes too much knowledge can be a scarey thing and perhaps self diagnosing is not the right avenue to take for yourself.

The weeks went by and the pediatric ICU doctor was there at all hours of the day and night. He had 3 other children at the time in the ICU who had suffered strokes. All of them close to Meghann’s age ( 5 years old). It was hard to stay positive when there was so much suffering going around you every day. I would sit by Meg’s bed for hours and watch her. All of the sounds of the steady beeping was enough to drive me insane. I wanted to rip all of those tubes out of her to make that  irritating beeping stop and run away with her in my arms.  I wanted to go back in time. I wanted to make her better. I wanted her to wake up and smile at me and say “mommy.”