The biggest update ever.

I'll break this into some sections to make it easier to read. There's a lot of stuff.

Stuff about Serena:

May 29 we put the kid to bed at 8, like we always do. I thought she felt a bit hot, but not hot enough for me to find and unpack the thermometer and stuff. At 10, she woke up quite toasty, so I found and unpacked the thermometer. It was 39.2C under the arm, which translates into like 103.5F when you add the extra for armpit. I gave her tylenol and stuffed her back in bed. A few minutes later Mike went to check on her, and brought her down because he felt she was sick and needed cuddling, and some water. Shortly after the water, her leg started twitching and she started looking all over the room and babbling. And I mean, she was looking all over and babbling in earnest at nothing. She is normally a very quiet baby, and she babbled non-stop for like 10 minutes. She was not responsive to us, and it was really fricking weird. We called my dad (my parents live three blocks from us now) and had him come stay and sleep while Bri slept.

When we got to the hospital, the ER doc kept saying, 'hmmmm' everytime I told him something, so I knew that wasn't good. But when he said he suspected she might have meningitis (the pneumacoccal, I beleive) I was pretty shocked. I was 98% sure that wasn't the problem. But I wasn't about to argue with the guy. They called for an IV/bloodwork immediately. They blew out the vein in her right hand, so they had to do it again in the left. Serena wigged out over this, and ended up tiring herself out so much that she fell asleep fairly soon after they were done. This ended up in our favour, as they ran her up to CT scan right after that. If she hadn't been sleeping, they would have sedated her. They stuffed in the machine, and I swear they made xerox's of her (more on that later). The thing slides you back and forth just like a photocopier. Then we went back to the 'waiting to admit' area and they did the lumbar puncture an hour later. I stayed for that, but I wasn't allowed to touch her or anything. I'm not sure if it was any worse to her than the IV was. It was kind of gross though, they tap your fluid like a keg and then catch what leaks out into test tubes. Immediately after they let her go for that, she fell asleep. This was about 2am. Mike went home, and I stayed in. At 4am, they sent upstairs finally.

Monday, a freaking doctor was banging down the door at 7:30 to do some neurological exam - we alreadt had the CT scan results back, they were negative - so I didn't see why it couldn't wait until Serena woke up on her own. After Serena was awake and had some breakfast (they feed the kids damn good there) I wasn't worried about her anymore. She was acting 95% herself. I was still certain she didn't have meningitis, but the hospital makesyou wait 48 hours for the cultures to come back. This meant she was also stuck in isolation, and in the crib. I felt bad about that. She's an active baby. Several times this day (and the next few) we thought we'd have to replace the IV. Thankfully, we never did. I hated that damn thing though, she was on three different medications and all it did was go bing. The neurologists came at some point in the afternoon and said they wanted her to have an EEG and an MRI.

Tuesday was EEG day, They made me keep her up until 1 (she still has a morning nap) so she was very cranky. Then they glued things to her head (I wish I had the camera with me then) and let her sleep for 10 minutes. Then they woke her up again. Poor kid. I found out when I came back from that about the MRI being the next day, so I knew I wasn't going home that night. Which sucked, because the fold out cot was possibly worse than the floor.

Wednesday bright and early was the MRI, they came to sedate her, and I guess it tastes bad because she woke up and starting yelling at the nurse. But then she went back to sleep and we carted her downstairs. MRIs are disgustingly noisy, They need to work on that. Serena woke up right at the end of it. It was just after lunch the neurologist came back and said her MRI was fine, but her EEG was not. He said it meant she has a 50% chance of having epilepsy, bu not to worry about it. I'm fairly certain that they are leaning towards this being an a-typical febrile seizure. However, we won't know for awhile, basically we wait and see if she has any more seizures. I'm not overly concerned, it's most likely nothing, and even if it is epilepsy, whatever. That's no big deal in my book. We shared the ward with kids with cancer.

And back to photocopying Serena - Wednesday there was a kid there (he stayed for a few days, we chatted in the toy room right before we were released) who looked just like Serena. Same hair, same eyes, same size. It was weird. He broke his arm, I hope they let him out shortly after us.

Brianna Update:

I signed Bri up for school today. She is very excited. She's also been signed up for 1/2 day - 1 week summer camp at the end of July. She'll go 9-12 for a week. She has recently informed me that she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up. Then she will teach me how, and I can be her helper.

House Update:
I am too lazy to rehash everything, but Bell Canada is staffed with idiots, and the stove got dropped. All our stuff got in the house with relatively no problems, and the important stuff is unpacked. The kitchen has most of a new floor, there's a new toilet and Bri's room is pink. I hope to start painting the playroom next week, and Mike needs to start on the plumbing soon.

The end.