Tender Mercies from the Lord...

It's taken me several days to calm down enough to even write about what happen on Sunday night, but words just can't seem to express the gratitude I have for a loving Father in Heaven that watched over our sweet little Reese. On Saturday night, Reese started with a fever and so I stayed home with her on Sunday from church. By Sunday afternoon she was still running a pretty decent temperature and just very tired. (I should have known that something was starting when she took two 2 1/2 hour naps on Saturday... giving me a wonderful break while Mark and the boys were all at the lake.) We came to the conclusion that she must have an ear infection again and so this time I thought...I really don't want to go spend the entire afternoon in Insta Care so why not see if the neighbor across the street that is a family practice doctor can take a look at her ears just to tell me if they are infected. They have lived here about 4 1/2 years but they are never outside and we have rarely said more than HI or waved occasionally to them. I thought it was a strange impression to go and see her but I figured it was a good idea. Little did I know how much I would need that beginning of a friendship later that evening.

Sure enough her ears were red and we started her on Omnicef - a strong antibiotic that she has been on before. After dinner, we started into the back to school bedtime routine as the first day of school was Monday. Mark took the boys upstairs and I stayed down to nurse Reese and see if I could get her to sleep. Shortly after they went upstairs, she started to doze off and I was so thankful that she finally was able to get some rest for the day. She had not been able to get to sleep all day and was sooo tired. After just a minute or so, she started being startled every few minutes in her sleep. I noticed that she was starting to get the chills and instantly grabbed a blanket to wrap her in. (Not the thing you are supposed to do with a feverish child, but I really was not thinking that her temp was very high.)

Within a few minutes, she suddenly had this terrifying glazed look in her eyes and became very limp and lethargic. I immediately screamed for Mark and tried getting her to snap out of it. Then she started having trouble breathing and I immediately ran out the front door and to the neighbors house across the street. Without earlier having gone to her house I really don't think she would have come to mind in this emergency. By the time I ran across the street and go to her door, Reese was having trouble breathing an gurgling. She immediately took her pulse and gave her mouth to mouth. We were able to get her to snap out of what we were soon to find out was a seizure brought on by a very high temperature. The ambulance showed up just a few seconds later and I ran her to the street to meet them. In getting her into the back, they took her temp and found it to be 104.2 which is actually 105.2 internally. They told me that she probably had a febrile seizure from the temperature and that we would take her straight to the ER. I called for Mark to get my shoes and bring my wallet and we rushed off. In the meantime, the neighbors were all outside trying to see why there was an ambulance, fire truck and four other volunteer fire dept. vehicles at our house. Mark called for a neighbor to hurry in and watch the boys and he jumped in the car to follow us to the hospital. Words cannot even begin to describe the pain and agony we felt as you see your little baby in these conditions. It still is hard to write about...

On the way to the hospital the EMT was able to get an IV started into her arm on the first try (what a miracle) and gave her another dose of Tylenol. She was such an angel and soooo good throughout the entire ride. At this point she was very tired but alert and responsive. I guess it is normal for them to be very tired after a seizure. They gave her oxygen and had all kinds of things hooked up to her. On the way to the hospital, I called the bishop from church and asked him to meet us at the hospital to help Mark give Reese a blessing. They were there when we arrived and we were able to step into a room and give her a blessing. In the blessing, she was blessed that she would be able to recover and be o.k. and I breathed a sign of relief. I was never more grateful for the priesthood power that at that moment in my life. How thankful I am for a husband who honors his priesthood and keep his covenants so that at a moments notice he is able to give any one of us a blessing if we need it.

The doctor in the ER agreed that it was most likely a febrile seizure but she wanted to run some other tests to see if everything else was o.k. She had a CT scan, chest x-rays, blood tests and urine cultures ( catheters are no fun on infants)... and everything so far has come back normal. We are still waiting on some longer cultures from the lab for her blood and urine, but hopefully that will all be normal too. We were able to leave the hospital about 3:15AM and I just can't tell you how good it was to walk out to the car with her that night.


With two hours of sleep, we woke Monday morning to get all the kids off for their first day of school. Tanner - 6th grade, the big middle school, Brennan - 5th grade, top of the elementary, Tate - 2nd grade, hooray, and Brock - Kindergarten - yeah for big boy school! If the pictures have him looking a little scared, you'd never know it when he got home that day. What began as a very scary evening, awoke to a very exciting first day of school. One we all will never forget. Hooray for awesome teachers and what will be a GREAT year for them all.

It truly was a tender mercy from the Lord to have her be healed! I must say that some of the most touching things that I have been told by neighbors since then was how the boys all in tears, gathered together in prayer for their sister in the front yard - and many other times. The love they have for her is beyond anything I can describe. Countless times Tanner would call us while we were in the ER wanting to know what was going on so that he could tell his brothers. They all had the hardest time getting to sleep and shed many tears on her behalf. I am very thankful to say that she is now fever free four days later and we have our sweet little sassy Reese back bossing all her brothers and the cats and dog around again. She is such a blessing to each of us and we all love her so very, very much. And one that note... some one's just waking up and calling... "Maaaa.... Maaaa!!!"