you never think it could happen to you...

when i first found out that my daughter, cambrie, had lost her hearing, my first thought was that she would never hear me say "i love you" again, or me singing "twinkle, twinkle little star" to her before bedtime.  it broke my heart in a million places.  i can still picture myself, like i was outside of my body, sobbing alone in a chair on the patio of BC Children's Hospital after receiving the news.  there were a few moments of weakness like this, i am after all human.  but when you look at my daughter and you see how strong she is and how well she copes with what has been thrown at her, it is difficult to be sad, to get upset, or to ask "why me?".  she is two, and this is her story:)  

Mother's Day May 2012

i wanted her second birthday to be awesome:)  we were camping at one of our favorite places in early June and i thought for some reason keeping an ice cream cake on ice for a few hours would yield the same results as having it in the freezer.  nope.  it was a soggy mess by the time we got to it, but she loved it all the same.  we were together anyways...and my mom was there to celebrate as well all the way from kelowna.  i think that she was there that particular time for a reason, you know how fate works that way sometimes.  

Happy girl on her 2nd birthday
marshmallows mushed all over
her face and playing at the beach.

two days after that wonderful celebration, we were out in the yard enjoying some much appreciated sunshine (we live in Prince Rupert, BC...one of the rainiest places in all of Canada!) having a little picnic when cambrie told me her tummy hurt.  she went on as normal after that...i asked her to eat her lunch.  we needed to take her brother keaton to preschool, so we packed up in the car and headed out, stopping at the garden store for some seeds to plant in the garden.  on our way home, cambrie began to cry.  she would normally have a soother ("nuk nuk" as we call it) but i had forgotten it at home.  it was nap time and i knew that she must be tired.  she whaled the whole way home, and when we got home she was inconsolable.  i searched high and low for her soother with no luck.  i sat in our rocking chair and tried to calm her, but she continued to cry.  i thought that this seemed a bit strange...but then there under her blankie in her crib i saw the nub of her soother.  savior!!  i grabbed it and put it in her mouth...she calmed quickly and snuggled in, and fell asleep in my arms. I placed her gently in her crib and went downstairs.  

a few hours later cambrie woke up from her nap.  she was crying again, which is not normal since she usually wakes up quite happy.  I snuggled her on the couch without any success in getting her to calm down.  i will never forget the way she started to hit her forehead with closed fists, right on her brow.  she screamed in pain and i wondered if she had a migraine or something...then she threw up on me.  

oh geez...poor girl!  she told me her tummy hurt, she probably picked up the flu someplace.  someone passed me a towel to clean up with and we began to run a bath to clean her up. she was weak and exhausted, kind of limp in my arms.  a warm bath would surely help to make her feel more comfortable.  

i laid her back in the tub to wet her hair, swishing her back and forth gently to calm her.  she was whimpering a bit and this seemed to help calm her.  her eyes were rolling back in her head a bit as i did this.  my husband, aaron came in to see how she was doing, and he said something along the lines of "something is wrong with her shannen."  i had the same feeling, but i was trying to be calm and rational.  i tend to think of the worse, but my mind always back tracks to the steps i should take...this must be some of the first aid training i have, or the way that my brain tells me to calm down when a stressful situation arises.  my mom reassured me that she was okay, but to keep an eye on it.  i rationalized the flu however i could and that was where my mind was set.  we finished in the bath and she fell asleep in my arms again, wrapped in the towel from the bath.  

i let her sleep.  because when you think your child has the flu, isn't that the best thing for them?  i also wanted to watch her for a bit to see what other symptoms came up.  she wasn't running a fever...weird.  she slept hard, not restlessly, but when she woke again she was throwing up the rest of what she had in her stomach again.  this went on for a few hours...sleep, wake up, dry heave, sleep...i sent someone out for gravol.  

she took the gravol and slept again.  it was about bed time now, so i put her down for the night.  after she woke up once dry heaving, i kept her in my bed with me to keep an eye on her.  this was a lot of throwing up and it was starting to alarm me.  she wasn't really awake when she was awake...just kind of going through the motions before her little body relaxed again into rest.  

she was up a few times, then slept the majority of the night after about 3am...when she woke up she was a little more alert  but wouldn't eat or drink anything.  she hadn't had any fluids since about noon the day before...and being this sick i knew she needed to be on an IV.  we took her up to the hospital emergency room to see what they could do for her.

it is kind of a whirl wind from here.  sometimes i think of it and it whips by so quickly in my mind that it was like a dream that you just have little tid bits of.  then other days it feel like that wait was an eternity.  most of what i remember is the nurses trying to be so gentle as they poked my little girl five times before calling a surgeon to place the IV...her little veins were full of dehydrated blood that made it hard to hit the sweet spot.  i remember having to restrain her as she cried in my ears as they tried each time, tears silently streaming down my face. i tried to hide how difficult this was for me, and i tired to remind myself that this was going to help her.  little did i know how many more times i would have to do this to her over the next two weeks.

when the doctor came in a said that they were going to keep her overnight, i was relieved.  at least she will be safe here, they will keep and eye on her and do some tests to see what is really wrong.  the first blood test came back just slightly above normal, not something that got anyone thinking that there was something serious going on here.  i know her lethargic behavior was what was really worrying them and that she was really dehydrated.  

over the next few days, she became more alert and she was awake once when the pediatrician came in.  she was eating blueberries out of the container, smiling away and picking each one up with great dexterity.  she was awake for about 45 minutes at a time, and slept a few hours in between.  lots of blood work was ordered and each test came back with results that kept the doctors thinking that she was just sick with a virus.  her other symptom (which now i recognize was neck stiffness) was when i would pick her up under the armpits, she would go around and around with her head much like she was dizzy.  and she would say "whoa, whoa!" like she was dizzy, also.  the doctor did a few checks for neck stiffness as well...but it all seemed fine.  she also had no strength to sit up or hold her head up on her own.

aaron's parents showed up out of the blue once they heard that cambrie was in the hospital, my mom had left for home already and it was comforting to have family around.  again...fate taking place here as i know that they were there because we would need them so badly.

on the last day that we were at the Prince Rupert Hospital, our doctor told us to take her home for a few hours to see if she would perk up.  at this point, she was really tired of being cooped up in her hospital room for four days (who wouldn't!) and we agreed, this might help to have some of her own toys and familiar surroundings. at home, there was no change.  in fact, she slept most of the time we were there.

we went back to the hospital and waited for the doctor to see her again.  he didn't come right away so I called him.  i told him there was no change and he said he would call back in a few minutes.  at this point we were just so frustrated that no one could tell us what was wrong with our little girl we were ready to put her in the car and drive to BC Children's Hospital ourselves!  the drive is 26 hours minimum.  finally our GP came in with his daughter hanging from his shoulders.  he sat down on the bed with me and we talked about cambrie.

i have to post this and finish later...nap time is over and i have some cochlear implants to attempt to put on!!  i will do it...and it will get easier i am told!