Disney ... Where Nightmares Happen

I referenced in my past two posts that Teddy got sick while at Disney. After a fun-filled day at Animal Kingdom, I had already fallen asleep when Dave woke me up by whisper calling my name, followed by the dreaded phrase, "There's something wrong with Teddy." Talk about going from a sound sleep to standing in the bathroom flipping on a blinding light in an instant. As soon as I turned on the light, we knew Teddy was having a seizure, and our nightmare was just starting.

There's some things I'm incredibly grateful for looking back on the experience:

1. My mental script of what to do when Teddy had a seizure worked perfectly from the rescue medication standpoint. He's never needed it before, but I'd mentally walked through using my Garmin watch to start a run to time a seizure to know when to administer rescue medication. 
2. Dave's parents were literally two doors down, so they were in our room within two minutes of me waking up, thanking to me pounding on their door waking them from a sound sleep. I couldn't be more grateful for all they did that night and the next day, as well as Dave's brother and his family ensuring AJ enjoyed his day.
3. Disney was incredibly responsive, having multiple people on site within 5 minutes of being called, all doing their best to help. They were also great after the fact, helping out with our journey back to the resort and calling the next few days to check on Teddy.
4. The EMTs were literally right down the road and were there within probably 10 minutes of the the moment when Dave woke me up. They were also great at their jobs and even offered for us to visit the station later in the week, although we didn't make it there.

This was the first time we've had to use Teddy's rescue medication since he got prescribed it in December 2017. All my fears of using it were completely overruled by the fact that he needed it, so again, that mental script worked perfectly.

This was also the first time Teddy's ridden in the ambulance with lights, sirens and the whole 9 yards. We called EMTs for the very first seizure he had but never since until now. He rode in an ambulance for transport back in December 2017, but that was once he was stabilized. This was a 30-minute ride with lights, sirens and even honking horns to try to get into the right lanes around drivers who didn't care about the ambulance. The sound the siren makes when it echos in the overpasses still sends shudders through me since I heard it so many times on that ride.

We spent the night at the Children's Hospital ER. The staff were fine, but it was such a different experience than when we've visited our local ER. There's something to be said for smaller towns where there's not so many patients. We got quite the response when Dave pushed the call button, though, when Teddy vomited all over himself and me because they thought he was having another seizure. We got released around 4 a.m. and had nearly an hour-long taxi ride back to the resort due to the taxi driver getting lost repeatedly. Let's just say we went to Hollywood Studios twice before 5:30 a.m. Oh, and the kind taxi driver gave us a tour of Orlando on the way, pointing out the nightclub shooting scene and letting us know when we were driving through the worst part of Orlando. Trust me, I didn't need that information at 4:30 a.m. when I was operating on less than an hour of sleep and a whole lot of stress.

Seizures suck.

We got back to the resort at 5:30 a.m. and sent grandma back to her room to rest (not that she got any rest) because she had stayed with AJ the entire night. AJ managed to sleep through us, Dave's folks and several Disney staff in our room with all the lights on and all the commotion. Guess we wore him out. AJ woke up at 6:30, after I had napped for an hour, so I took him to his grandparents' room and then attempted to fall back asleep. I woke up again at 9, took a quick shower and headed out for my first-ever (and second and third) Uber ride to get Teddy's rescue medication filled.

Tuesday was one of the worst days of my life. I was that person who spent the entire second Uber ride silently crying in the backseat because I couldn't handle being told that the first pharmacy didn't have the medicine in stock. Then, I lost it at the second Walgreens and had a complete meltdown in the bathroom. Then, to add insult to injury, the third Uber ride back to the resort got just as lost as the taxi driver and took me to Hollywood Studios a third time. (And, let's just say, they're not so keen on you driving through the parking lot without stopping when the park is actually open.)

Dave headed to meet AJ for his Jedi training-at my insistence-while I stayed with Teddy. I got puked on 3 more times and was convinced we needed to go back to the hospital because Teddy couldn't keep even the medicine down and was still burning up with a fever. I was terrified he'd have another seizure, so I was just waiting for Dave to get back to head to the hospital. Then Dave's mom showed up, and all of the sudden Teddy could move from his deathbed.

At the insistence that I needed to eat something, I went to the snack shop and proceeded to have another meltdown when the lady asked me how my day was. I don't think she was expecting me to burst into tears, so I made my way to the bathroom for my second bout of sobbing. And then when I got to the room again, I went to our bathroom to sob one more time before determining I needed to run.

You see, it's hard to run and sob at the same time. Running forces you to regulate your breathing and calm down. For the first time all day, I genuinely smiled and felt the tide turn in the right direction. We monitored Teddy closely and drugged the snot out of him with Tylenol and Ibuprofin, along with his increased dose of his anti-seizure medicine.

The next couple days were sketchy, monitoring him closely, keeping him well medicated and worrying. Turns out, as we discovered when we took AJ to our walk-in clinic Sunday, Teddy had strep throat. We had no clue until his seizure, and the only warning sign in hindsight was shivering before bed. We had attributed that to being chilly from a water ride and going onto an air conditioned bus. Even through the illness, there was no sign of sore throat that we could tell. We had fever and vomiting as his symptoms. He's a tough kid to diagnose with his lack of verbal communication and high tolerance of pain.

The saying ignorance is bliss is true. This event ripped away some of that ignorance, that ability to pretend it won't happen to us. Those kids who need ambulance rides for their seizures or who actually need rescue medications? That won't happen to us, even though Teddy has a rescue medicine prescribed. Yeah, right.

Then I think about all the what ifs, which is such a slippery slope. What if this happened on the airplane? Teddy could be the reason a flight is diverted for an emergency landing. What if this happened when we've been in some of our most remote national parks, literally 3 hours from medical services? I don't know. What if a seizure like this happens when Dave isn't right next to Teddy to notice that his breathing changed and something is wrong? I don't know.

The what if questions could go on and on, but that's not a productive line of thinking. The best we can do is work to be prepared in the event that we have a situation arise in the future, work on our mental scripts and continue to trust in God to help us along the way.