Tough Little Guy!

I can't believe my baby is 6 months old! It seriously seems like it was just yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital. He is such a good baby, so much fun and can't imagine our family without him. It amazes me the immediate bond there was between him and his sister. Kenzlie tells Jensyn all the time "I love you SO much buddy," and Jensyn just loves watching her.

Jensyn at 6 months

17 pounds 9 oz. - length 26 1/2" - head 45.1 cm

He loves most baby food, especially pears, bananas, and applesauce. He is sitting up but still just a little bit wobbly. He rolls over in both directions, and is all over the place. He is my little "steamroller." Getting him dressed & changing diapers is more like a wrestling match, he doesn't hold still. He finally likes toys and doesn't get as mad when they don't do what he wants. Suddenly after 6 months takes a binky which makes life so much easier. He is always smiling and talking. He loves his daddy to tickle him and has the cutest little laugh.

But.... as many already know we did have a very rough couple of months with him.

It all stated on February 3rd my mom was watching him while I was at work. She called me and told me that Jensyn was acting really strange and that she didn't know what was wrong with him. She told me she would try feeding him and see if it would help. She called me again about a half hour later and said that something was really wrong that I needed to come get him. I hurried and left work and rushed to my parents house... the second I looked at him I knew something wasn't right. He was really pale, his eyes were glassy, he was grunting and holding his breath almost like he needed to poop. I took him to InstaCare, he moaned and growned the whole way to Logan - I felt so bad. Jeremie was on his way home from work so he met me there. We waited forever and finally got called back. As the nurses were checking his temp., weight, etc. Jensyn was just talking and smiling at them - making me look like a crazy paranoid mom. The doctor that checked him was terrible... he told us he was "just teething" and sent us home. Whatever? Jensyn seemed fine for a few hours until he started doing it again... I felt so bad for him and didn't know what to do?? He finally came out of it and seemed fine.

Feb. 21 he started doing this same thing in the middle of the night. Jeremie was at work so I called my mom and she came down and helped me with him. He did almost the same thing as the two times before but he also threw up. On top of that he had a pretty bad cold and wasn't feeling very good. We decided to just to watch him and see how he was later that day. We ended up taking him to InstaCare again cause his cold and cough seemed to be getting worse. They took a chest x-ray and tested him for RSV which came back positive. Great!! 3 hours later... they sent us home with a nebulizer to give him breathing treatments every 4 hours. Poor little guy, I felt so bad.

On Tuesday morning when Kenzlie woke up she had a cough and sounded terrible. Since Jensyn didn't seem to be doing any better I decided to take both of them to the doctor. The doctor said that what Kenzlie had was basically the same thing that Jensyn had but since she was older would do much better with it. The first thing they did with Jensyn was check his oxygen level which was borderline-low. The doctor told me that he could admit him into the hospital or we could take him to a respiratory clinic when he needs it to help him breathe. Of course I didn't want my baby admitted into the hospital but I wanted whatever would be best and get him feeling better. I decided to take him home and try the clinic when he starts sounding bad. We ended up taking him to the respiratory clinic early the next morning around 4 a.m. and again that night around 10 p.m. They checked his oxygen level the whole time we where there. It was always low when we got there and gots better as they clean all the junk out of his airways. Poor little guy got a suction tube put down his nose that seems like it would reach his toes. It really helps him breathe better but it is so temporary. So we go back to the doctor on Friday.... now he has a sinus infection which is why he isn't improving. The doctor puts him on an antibiotic and said that he should be feeling much better by Saturday. On Saturday I could definitely see that Jensyn was getting back to his normal self and was improving. YEAH!!

That was until Saturday night around 9:30 p.m. he had been asleep and woke up crying. I tried everything to get him calmed down. I said to Jeremie something is wrong. Then it happened... he stopped crying for a few minutes and the grunting began, his eyes got glassy and rolled back into his head, he was pale and clammy, wouldn't respond, foaming at the mouth. I was SO scared, what was happening to my baby?? I called my mom and she came right down. We debated calling 911 as well. I called my sweet neighbor who works in a doctors office, when she came over Jensyn was finally coming out of it and getting back to normal somewhat. We were telling her what he was doing and she told us that she was almost 99% sure that he was having a seizure. A seizure?? I had no idea... after about 15-20 minutes Jensyn was back to being happy and talking just like nothing ever happened. I called the doctor the next day which was Sunday and scheduled an appointment with his doctor on Monday, but they told us that if he had another one before that to take him to the ER.

On Monday at the doctor I explained to him what had happened all FOUR times. He said that it did sound like he was having seizures. The doctor examined him and said that he looked fine and as far as the RSV and sinus infection he was sounding really good. The doctor told me that he really thought what would be best would be to take him to a neurologist at Primary Children's. We were put on waiting list for Primary Children's not knowing how long it would be until we could get in. Primary Children's called me Tuesday afternoon and asked if we could be there the next day Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.

The neurologist at Primary Children's had us explain what had happened during, before and after these four episodes. He did a very serious examination and several tests on Jensyn. He said that everything seemed very normal, he was developing normal and couldn't see anything obvious that was causing these seizures. He told us that we would need to have a EEG (electroencephalogram) done on him which is a test that measures and records the electrical activity of your brain. Luckily the doctor and the EEG technicians stayed late that night so we didn't have to schedule it and make a trip back down. Special sensors (electrodes) were attached to his head and hooked by wires to a computer. The computer recorded his brain's electrical activity on the screen as wavy lines. Certain conditions, such as seizures, could be seen by the changes in the normal pattern of the brain's electrical activity. Once they had all the electrodes hooked to Jensyn's head, they wrapped his head with gauze. The entire test took almost an hour which I was able to hold him the entire time as he slept all but maybe 5 minutes of. At the end of the test they turn on a series of 10 patterns of strobe lights that stresses the brain and will bring out any abnormalities in the brain if there are any. Once the test was complete and they took all the electrodes off him we were asked to wait in the waiting room and they would page the doctor to read the test. They gave us the darling little blue bear blanket in the pictures above that we could take home. He seriously LOVES his "huggie blanket" as Kenzlie calls it. The neurologist told us that everything on the EEG looked normal, which didn't mean that he wasn't having seizures but nothing more serious. He told us that he would like to put him on an anti-seizure medicine for 6 months and see if he had any more seizures. Then in 6 months they would take him off the medication and schedule another EEG. He also wanted to have a MRI done to double check his brain. The doctor also told us that if we wanted to wait and see if he did have another seizure before we started him on the medication we could. That is what we decided to do since the side-effects of the medication were it would make him more mellow and he would want to sleep more. I am SO happy to say that he has NOT had any more seizures and are hoping he never does again. We love you tough little guy and are so happy you are finally doing better!