11:30 am on 08-21-05
When the youngest is sick, we're all worried
Last weekend my parents were away so I spent time with my youngest sister. She had complained of an ear ache and really wasn�t feeling well. I asked her if she wanted to go to the doctor and she said no, that it really wasn�t that bad. Well by Monday morning it had really gotten bad so she went to the urgent care center and was diagnosed with an ear infection and told to take it easy. Wednesday night she was in the kitchen getting ready to take her medicine and she passed out and had a seizure. She was feeling dizzy and weird, so she called to my other sister who came into the kitchen and was able to get her to the floor when she passed out. When she came to, her arms and legs were numb and she had no feeling in them. I had been at the grocery store and my other sister called me to tell me to come home because of what happened. I get home and the paramedics are still there and my sister is gray looking and clammy. She had some feeling in her arms and legs, but she said that they were tingling and her head was pounding as well as she said that her inner ears were pulsating.
Aneurysms run in my dad�s side of the family. His mom died because of one and two of his sisters had them (and they were caught in time). So A (my little sister) had a ct scan done and a bunch of other blood work. The ct scan came back negative, thank god, but she still had a terrible ear infection. They put her on two strong doses of IV antibiotics and then she was able to come home.
On Thursday, she slept in and when she woke up, the left side of her face was paralyzed. If she smiled, only half of her face would work. She couldn�t close her eye all the way, but she had feeling. She went to the doctor and he said it was most likely from swelling in her ear from the ear infection and that it was affecting her seventh facial nerve. Kind of like Bell�s Palsy. So now she gets more medicine and is scheduled for an MRI on Tuesday. Well on Friday, my mom sees that she has developed some sort of blisters in her ears, and that the swelling is much worse. Back to the doctor she goes and she comes home and the doctor has said that she has something similar to herpes simplex virus in her ear and a case of ringworm! The poor kid. The ringworm we think is from when she was in Michigan and swimming in the lake.
So she still has to have her MRI on Tuesday. She still has facial paralysis and she is on ultra high doses of medication. They are so high, that the pharmacist questioned the dosage and didn�t think it was correct. There is the chance that the virus could spread to her brain and we won�t know this until the MRI. The doctor also said that in cases like this, 90% of people regain movement in their face, but there�s also the 10% that don�t regain anything and remain paralyzed. A is a strong girl, and she�ll deal with it, but at the same time she is very scared. She starts college on Monday and is worried about what is going to happen. Thank god she�s commuting and living at home, because her doctor wasn�t going to let her go if she was going away to school.
A had woken up on Wednesday morning and complained to my dad that her tongue was numb and that she felt as though she had burned it. I guess this was the first sign of the facial paralysis. She couldn�t taste anything either. The somewhat good news is that last night she was able to taste some food, just a little bit though. She�s still the same today so hopefully she�s going to get better. Say a prayer if you�re the praying type.
So in other news, last week I wrote briefly about LAN guy at work. We ended up driving to the game together on Friday and hanging out afterwards. I am not too sure if anything we�ll go anywhere though. We�ll see what happens. I will try not to overanalyze anything.