It was a good run but we are back

Brayden made it several months without a hospital stay.

He was admitted to the hospital on Sunday.  Started with seizures that led to finding pancreatitis.

Saturday night and into the early hours of Sunday morning, Brayden was miserable at home.  Jeremy and I seem to be rotating through the night tending to him.  Early Sunday morning we realized, Brayden was having more than a rough night, he was seizing.  We gave him a does of Diastat (he emergency seizure med).  That seem to help a bit but shortly after giving it, he was still going in and out of seizures.  We gave him another does of Diastat, he slept for a few hours.

Carter, Luke and I headed into church, while Jeremy stayed home with Brayden.  When I arrived home form church Brayden started seizure activity again.  We had to call 911.

The ambulance crew arrived.  The driver had been at our house several times, as well as the medic.  They both said they were happy to not see us for a while.  The medic has done several runs to the hospital with Brayden.  She confessed that for those first few years of Brayden's life, the crew was always very worried when they would see our address come up.  But that she thought Brayden looked much healthier since the last time she had seen him.  It was nice to have the crew already know Brayden and his history, they just load him in the ambulance and go to the hospital (not trying to do things in the ambulance).

We arrived at the hospital, still going from seizures back and forth to a deep postictal state.  The ER doctor was not convinced Brayden was seizing.  Thankfully the nurse had been with Brayden before and confirmed that this behavior and movement was not Brayden's norm.  They gave him a dose of Ativan, which helped.

In the meantime, the ER doctor ordered labs to see if any infection, virus, etc. could be the triggered for the seizures.

 We have been to the ER more times than I can recall, I do not recall ever finding a reason for the seizures.  We expected to just be at the ER for a few hours to get the dose of Ativan, make sure the seizures were under control and then we would be heading home.

The ER doctor came back with the labs results.

The were concerns with the labs.  His lipase and amylase were very high.  Brayden had pancreatitis.  We had to be transferred from our local hospital to the larger Inova Fairfax.

The transport team arrived in the new fancy pediatric transport ambulance (only 6 months old)...it was nice, like a cross between a motor home and ambulance.  One of the transport guys had been with Brayden before (once to Childrens and maybe a couple of times to Inova Fairfax).

So off to Inova Fairfax to be admitted.

Brayden has ongoing problems with his pancreas.  He has had pancreatitis in the past and he has a pancreatic enzyme deficiency. But this time he has been in pain, screaming for hours and hours pain.

Brayden does not respond well (saying that nicely) to morphine, so we had to spend too many hours trying a pain medication that would work for him.  Finally good doses of Toradol have helped.  There is not much to do for pancreatitis, just NPO (no food) and manage the pain, so we have to wait it out.

About 10:00 p.m. last night Brayden had an ultrasound to check his pancreas.  Unfortunately the tech and then the radiologist could not get a good picture because Brayden had too many gas bubbles blocking the view.

Brayden did sleep much better last night and seems comfortable this morning.

Now we wait for labs to check his lipase and amylase levels.  If they are still very high, then he may have a CT scan.  If his levels have gone down and he is handling the pain better, they could be talking about going home but not until this evening.