First ER trip

You got it, we had our first EVER ER trip. It happened Sunday when little miss Claire decided to give us a small heart attack. You see, she has started walking but is still a bit unsteady on her feet. She was trying to step out onto my in-law's deck so I grabbed her hand to help her down. She stepped out onto the deck but sort of "spun" as she brought her leg around. I lost my grip and she fell totally sideways as if her legs got swiped out from under her and landed right on the side of her head. I thought, ouch that had to hurt, but didn't think much of it. She started crying and I picked her up to comfort her. She was sooooooo mad, and did that thing that babies do... how they cry out for a long time and then you are waiting for them to breath.. well I waited and then suddenly she went totally limp and her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she was totally unresponsive. I freaked and yelled down to my family "she just went unconcious". She snapped back into it after just a few seconds and seemed alright, she was just really upset. I was so scared and all I knew was that I wanted to take her to the hospital. At work I see so many head injuries and I didn't want to be that mother who waits days to bring their child in and they end up having a brain bleed or a skull fracture. I called up to the hospital and talked to one of the Radiologists I work with, and he told me it sounded like Claire had a post concussive seizure and that I better bring her up. So, around 7:45 we headed up to Primary's (by the way for you parents out there, seriously dont ever take your child anywhere else, this hospital is the best!) Once there, the doctors checked Claire out. She didn't have any huge goose eggs or anything, so they didnt seem too worried. They just wanted to monitor her for a few hours to make sure she didn't show signs of a brain injury. We stayed in the ER until 11:00 or so, which was sure fun with a 1 year old who's bedtime is around 7:45. She actually did pretty well, I kept her busy and we walked the halls and visited some of my co-workers. She would NOT let Andy even touch her, she was still scared, and just wanted her Mama. So it was a long 3 hours but everything checked out okay so we were discharged and we headed home (Claire lasted to about the exit of the parking lot before falling asleep, poor thing).

So we went to a follow up with her pediatrician yesterday and Claire is doing fine! After telling the Doctor the history, she thinks she had what they call a "Breath Holding Spell". I had never heard of this.

A breath-holding spell is an episode in which the child stops breathing and loses consciousness for a short period immediately after a frightening or emotionally upsetting event or a painful experience.

It is heredetary and she says it's likely that Claire will do it again, maybe multiple times. Some kids even do it while throwing tantrums. She said it's nothing to be worried about, and that it's good we figured it out so if it happens again we dont need to be alarmed. Wow!

So, we aren't 100% sure what happened. Was it a seizure, was it just a loss of conciousness or was it a breath holding spell? I guess it doesn't really matter, as long as Claire is okay the rest is irrelevant!

My sweet little Claire is sure giving us a run for our money these days!