The Hutchinson Family: Our Big Scare

As I've said in the past, this blog is my way of keeping a "journal" of sorts of the happenings of Riley's and Ryan's lives. The week to week happenings and events. Although Wednesday was a day we would all like to forget, I want to record it here as it is an important chapter in Riley's life. We are so thankful that things turned out the way they did and realize how quickly "life as we know it" can change! This is the email I sent out to our friends updating them on Wednesday:

We have had a very tough day today. Ryan has been sick, so we had arranged for my mom to be here today to stay with him. When Riley got up she was a bit fussy so we decided to keep her home today too. About 1030 this morning, Riley had a seizure. My mom was right there with her and couldn’t have handled the situation any better. They were walking up the stairs and Riley just stopped. My mom picked her up and she was stiff. She instantly knew something was wrong and got her to the kitchen floor and she began seizing. I can’t imagine what that experience was like, but I’m so thankful she called 911, got her on her side and kept her safe until the paramedics arrived. By the time I got home I hopped into the ambulance and we headed to Scottish Rite. She was lethargic and even slept in the ambulance (which is so unlike her), but eventually perked up soon after we got to the ER. They did a CT scan and there are no tumors or bleeding on the brain. Praise God! The doctor told us that a “first time seizure” is very common and many times children never have another episode. We will follow up with a neurologist tomorrow and hopefully get her seen within the next week. We were home by about 400 today and once the sedative wore off that they gave her for the CT scan, she was totally back to normal. Ryan seems to be much better too! They ate a good dinner and went down for bed right on time – we’re hoping mommy and daddy aren’t far behind them! We may never know why she had this seizure, but we are eternally grateful that everything turned out the way it did today. I have no doubt that God was watching over all of us every step of the way…even in our decision to keep her home today when she wasn’t really even sick yet. Please keep her in your prayers as we proceed with the neurologist and pray that we will get a perfectly clean bill of health for her.

Thank you for all the people that pitched in today and called us out of concern when you saw the fire truck and ambulance at our house (I had 3 calls before I even got home!), didn’t think twice and took Ryan and kept him totally safe and happy so we could be with Riley, locked up our house, moved my car out of the street (not even sure I put it in park when I pulled up!), got our dogs settled, brought us a car seat to the hospital, brought us dinner, called, emailed, texted, and most of all prayed. You know who you are! We are surrounded by the greatest friends in the world! I’m sure there was more than this that went on to help us that we don’t even realize. Thank you thank you thank you!

This is the follow up email I just sent tonight:

I wanted to check back in to give you an update… I’m sorry I haven’t been able to return every call and email. I’m totally exhausted. We made an appointment for Riley with a pediatric neurologist for Monday, June 1st. Hopefully we will get all the tests run and have a great outcome from that! Riley seems completely back to normal – YAY!!! On Thursday we were home and had a great day…until late in the afternoon Riley threw up everywhere and I mean everywhere. I figured she had finally caught what Ryan had earlier this week, but so far that was it for her. She hasn’t had any more issues since then. But – last night Kevin had terrible “tummy issues”. He was up throughout the night and he’s been terribly weak today and downright pitiful. He weighs 8 pounds less than he did a few days ago…if you know what I mean. As of now I’m the only one that has been healthy this week. Now – I’m just tired! Nurse Heidi is ready to go back to work for a break! J Thank you for your prayers and we will check back in after the next appointment. Happy Memorial Day!

I want to have a record of how happy Riley was by the time we were ready to leave the hospital! She's such a ham! Boy we were glad to see her beautiful smile after such a crazy day! The first picture is a bit blurry, so if you can't tell...yes - that is a cell phone on her head! She was totally into entertaining us and the people at Scottish Rite.