Sunada-Turnidge Fam

Our Little Enzo and Daddy Zack in Primary Children's

31 Oct 09

It looks like Enzo wants to be just like his big sister. Almost to the day of when Zella started having seizures Enzo did too. Something about the 4month age that triggers them...

What a memorable Halloween this year

was. I had the day off and was doing laundry while Enzo was asleep in the bouncer. I all of a sudden looked down and he was doing the same thing that Zella did...woken from sleep, clenched forward, red in the face, grunting (almost looks like they're having a bowel movement) then eyes lock to the far right, lips, tongue and body begin to jerk. I call for Zack and just try to talk the poor thing through it. He shook for about 2 1/2 minutes and then would not respond to us. I called 911. Police and ambulance came to our house within minutes and we finally got him to respond back. Total time about 5 minutes......a lifetime seems like. I went with Enzo in the ambulance to the Payson hospital to have him checked out. Zack had his parents meet him at the house to watch Zella and make sure she was nicely distracted. (she saw the whole thing and I was hoping that she wouldn't remember it) He met me at the hospital and it took about 2 hours and we decided to head up to Salt Lake to the Children's hospital there. Up there would be all of Zella's test results that she had to go though and we were hoping that they would be able to help with Enzo's situation and hopefully prevent him from having to go through the same long 2 month process! We stopped by to gather some clothes (we knew we would be staying at least over night) and then to say good bye to sweet little Zella. We were so sad to miss taking her trick or treating!!!! She was going to be a witch and if you asked her she was a witch a GOOD witch. Ha she's on a kick with the wizard of oz! Thanks to Gamma. Ha. We got checked into Primary Children's at about 6 PM. The day before Zack had left Enzo's favorite blanket at our friends the Janiec's house so I called my bro Grant to see if by chance he could go pick it up for us. (It always helps to have a blankey) Grant and his cute fiance came by and dropped the blanket off and then we were called to our room where we would sit for 5 hours. There had been a trauma and so the Dr's were busy. They have great Dr's there and they were so helpful and understanding to our situation. They called a neurologist and they went over our history and agreed to not do a spinal tap! Thank goodness! They also agreed to put us in a room for the night and do a EEG in the morning (EEG's are a scan of the brain waves and they can sense seizure activity) Zella had had 3 EEG's when she was here along with 2 painful spinal taps, cat scans and MRI's and with all these tests and smart Dr's still could not really find a real reason of why she was having seizures every hour while she was asleep. I suspect she had at least over a thousand seizures until they could find the right medication for them to stop. She was such a trooper through the whole thing. We got checked in and got as much sleep as you can having 2 people sleep on a fold out chair that is at least half the size of a twin size bed. With the time change and everything the EEG was at 12am. They put a whole bunch of little sensor things all over his head and then put gauze all around it. It looks like a little cap. A flood of memories kept coming to our minds with all the familiar smells and sounds. I held him through the test which was only 20 minutes. He didn't have one..I had this strong feeling that I should wake him up before she turned off the test but I ignored it. Something about me not wanting to tell the tech what to do....She started to take off the stuff it of course woke him up and it triggered him to have one. The tech said your kidding ran to the computer and recorded it. A nurse was there to see it too so we had the proof of what was going on. But something about holding your baby and having them just we stiff and uncontrollable makes time stand still and shocks you so you love and appreciate them and your family. Words cannot explain all the emotions that happen within that 4 minute time of him having uncontrollable shakes and then not even responding to your voice or your touch. It finally ended and we went back up to our room. The resident neurologist that was checking on us was sweet she is deaf but supper helpful and really listened to us. I kept thinking about how hard it was for her to get to where she was. I was proud of her. Another neurologist came in and he had been a resident when Zella had been in so it was funny to see a familiar face. He said if it weren't for Zella's tests and thing they would be doing all the same stuff they did on her on him. But since it was such a similarity to hers and such a strong history they would hold off unless it got severely worse. We had to stay one more night. Funny Zack tried to sleep on the floor and that lasted all of maybe 1 hour. Ha. The next morning the head neurologist came in another familiar face and he remembered Zella. I remembered him saying that with most kids that come in they maybe spend 10% of their thinking on them but with her he said she was such a rare case they were spending at least 90% of their time with her. He said that everything looked great they had Enzo on the same medication that worked on Zella same dose same everything. He said that the brain waves were amazingly the same when they compared them. I felt so strongly that Zella went through all of that for little Enzo! Zella has such a strong body and spirit that she probably agreed to go through all this so Enzo didn't have to suffer. Enzo was so strong too he was smiling through the whole thing and just being so sweet. They are such sweet pure and perfect angels! I'm so grateful to be blessed with such amazing children! I don't know what I would do with out them they have made me a better person and I love them for that. I'm so grateful for a sweet husband that helps out and wants to be a part of these sweet kids lives. I thank my Heavenly Father every day for these things and also for the blessings of being a eternal family. The knowledge of being together after we pass on makes these trials in life so much easier. I also thank all of you for your sweet sincere prayers to help us through these hard times! Thank you Forever!!!!!