I see you found you way here...this is where our journey begins...hold on to your hats....it's a bumpy ride.....but hint has a happy ending so far...
Arielle's Story
Arielle Sept, 1997
Hello I am Trudy my friends on the net call me TAZ or TAZmo. I have wanted to tell this story for awhile and I will do so here. My daughter Arielle, who is four and a half, has Hydrocephalus and this is the story of how we found out about it.
When Benjamin had just turned three I found out that I was pregnant. I was thrilled and for some reason from the moment I found out I was pregnant again, I just knew that it was a little girl this time around. Funny how I knew. Anyway the pregnancy was uneventful and progresssed with no hitches what so ever. I didn't even have an ultrasound, because there was no medical reason to have one my insurance wouldn't pay for it (and I knew that the amount it would have cost me would be better served by buying diapers and formula).
On June 6, 1993 at 6 am. I went in to the hospital to be induced (my doctor thought this would be best since my last child BEN was 9 pounds at birth). When the nurses hooked me up to the monitor they found out that I was already having contractions. Gee I hadn't felt em yet. They went ahead with the induction, however. And, Arielle was born at 3:45 pm. A perfect (we counted her fingers and toes) little angel! She weighed in at 7 pounds 5 ounces and was 20 inches long. She was born with a head full of black hair (it's blonde now). We were all so happy!
2 Days old---going home from the hospital
I walked around on air for the first couple of weeks. Even though I was recovering from the labor. I was so happy I had the perfect family-- one boy and one girl and hubby. What more could I ask for? I was soon to find out. Arielle began acting like a collicy baby (or what I thought at the time was the collic). She would have periods of time in the evenings that she would cry and nothing we would do would calm her. (the only thing that calmed her was holding her very still in my arms with her head somewhat upright) She also began vomiting if she was fed too much at a time. When I told her doctor at routine visits. I guess I didn't stress that this was vomiting and not spitting up. She seemed to pass those first few peditrician visits with flying colors. Now that I look back I can see more clearly she was also having mini convulsions sometimes when she threw up. She was a nervous or jittery baby (this nervousness I noticed from the beginning and didn't think that was quite right). But I just put those things in the back of my head, blaming it on being nervous at having a new baby in the house again.
When Arielle was 7 weeks old. Greg and I had the opportunity to go out again for the first time by ourselves since the new baby arrived. So with my parents babysitting both the kids, we set off to meet friends for dinner and a movie. The next day my Mom (who had kept the kids overnight) called saying Arielle was running a temp and she was worried about her. Seeing as I only lived two miles from my mom at the time. Greg and I jumped in the car and drove to her house to see what was going on. Within 5 minutes or less we were there. Arielle was running a temp and it seemed a little high for a new baby (sorry I don't remember what it was as this was over four years ago). So we decided since it was the weekend and I couldn't get ahold of her doctor (I tried) that we would just run her into the emergency room. When we got there I took her back and explained what my Mom had said about her temperature spiking and then going down that weekend. Appparently they couldn't find anything wrong, but for some reason ( I think just to appease me they sent us home with antibiotics). I was very angry when I came out of the ER room, I was treated like a nervous new mom. No one had gone back with me so I had no backup. But I knew the next day was her regular pediatrician visit, so I calmed myself with the knowledge that if something was wrong he would find it. Well, other than discovering that her rash was from the antibiotics (she's allergic to penicillin) she was given a clean bill of health. Nothing out of the norm showed up.
On August 8th (Arielle was just turning 10 weeks old) we had our annual family reunion at my grandparents. Arielle seemed unusally fussy that day. When I gave her, her bath and washed her hair she wailed, this was unlike her. She was also fussy when I tried to take some pictures of her and her brother. I thought he may have been doing something to her to make her cry. Later that day, when she finally calmed down she slept a lot longer than was normal for her at nap time. The next night (Monday) when she went to bed, she slept about an hour and woke up. I found she could sleep if I was holding her in my arms, but when I went to lay her down she would wake up screaming. (I later found out that when I laid her down, it was if she was getting migraine headaches) This went on all night so I ended up sitting up with her, we both sat in the couch and slept (not much on my part). Concerned about her I called her pediatrician the next day and explained her symptoms. Thursday was the best they could do for getting us in. I called a few more times that day as she seemed to get a little worse (or could have been my nerves by that time with so little sleep). Anyway they finally got me in for the first morning appointment on Thursday. (I have since learned to push them, then I let them put me off....NEVER AGAIN!!!)
To continue your journey.......
Please sign the guestbook, THANKS :)
I wasn't going to add links because I wanted to keep this page free of them, but I have since changed my mind. I think this is a good one for those of you that got here through other means.
Hydrocephalus Guest Book
in this book you will find people with varied stories on hydrocephalus. It is very informative and has helped me in a lot of ways.
© Trudy November 9, 1997
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