Tammy McClelland

Travis had a minor seizure yesterday morning. It seems odd to combine the words “minor” and “seizure” in the same sentence but that is the best way to describe it. It only lasted about 2 minutes. We were just about to administer the medicine when he stopped seizing. Whenever he has a seizure, it starts the clock over as far as recuperation. So yesterday, he slept a lot and was pretty unresponsive. If I walked through his field of vision, he would track me with his eyes. Last night I noticed that he would watch the t.v. for a few minutes a couple of times. Mostly, he just stares off to the side. Last night, he began to move his left leg and arm more, which is a good sign. This morning he has responded verbally a few times and been awake quite a bit more this morning.Monday evening, the children started asking questions after everything had calmed down. Things like, “What does this mean?”, “What if he has a seizure while you are sleeping?”. Things like that. I explained that this didn’t mean anything really. It does not make anything more imminent. He should have been having seizures all along and he was not. Now he is. I explained that I am sure I would wake up if he was having a seizure. In the event of another seizure, we would simply administer the medication and it should stop within 15 minutes. The children then, of their own accord, came up with a plan and they gave each other jobs as to what their role would be if Travis had another seizure. I then explained that if the seizure did not stop, we would simply call Hospice and they would come. Interestingly, they were very concerned if Travis would go to the hospital. It seemed that they did not want him to leave home. I explained that he would not go back to the hospital. That if we encountered a scenario where it was hard to control the seizures that Hospice would give us a 24 hour nurse to manage the seizures so that responsibility did not fall to us anymore but that Travis would stay here. By the time they went to bed that evening, they seemed to have all settled into the fact that this was just the new “normal” and it was not a big deal. Even yesterday with Travis not really responding and sleeping more, they still came in the bedroom quite a bit and just talked and interacted with him as they always had. It didn’t matter if his eyes were closed or if he responded, they talked anyway. That was a beautiful thing to watch. As parents, we know that our children love us even if they do not always show it. Watching the way that our children have poured love out on Travis has awed and humbled me on more than one occasion.