A sister and a life saver

We have had quite the week, so I'm going to do my best to re-tell all the happenings.

On Wednesday night, AJ and I were up late packing for camp because we were planning to leave Thursday morning. Lydia started crying at 11:00 pm which is pretty unusual, and he went in to check on her. He came out with Lydia and told me to go listen to Jenna breathing, because he thought it sounded strange. I went in to listen, and I thought she had thrown up and was laying in it. I felt around on her matress, and she didn't move so I picked her up. Her eyes were open, she was breathing funny, and her right arm and eye were both twitching. She had already thrown up some stuff in her bed and started coughing up some white foamy stuff. I started calling her name, and she wasn't making eye contact or really responding at all. I called AJ, and we began the panic of figuring out what to do. At first we thought she was choking, and thankfully AJ realized we were dealing with an emergency and called for an ambulance. In the meantime, Lydia was sitting on the couch very calmly (not normal considering the circumstances) watching us take care of her sister. We started realizing that it seemed like she was having a seizure, and soon the fire trucks and ambulance arrived at our house. They agreed that it looked like a seizure and waited for a while to see if she would come out of it. She puked some more but was still not responding.

They decided to take her on to the hospital, and AJ went along to be with her. I was trying to figure out what to do with Lydia, and a neighbor was standing outside and offered to stay with her. I put her back to bed, and amazingly she laid right down without a fuss. When I arrived at the hospital, Jenna was still seizing, and we were so scared. I had never known a seizure to last so long, and we had no idea what was happening. They gave her some medicine to calm anxiety and put her on oxygen. Thankfully, at 11:30 (30 minutes later) she came out of it. She was very sleepy and not at all herself, so we were still quite scared. After several hours in the ER praying and singing and talking to Jenna, we learned that she had pneumonia and that they wanted to admit her to the other hospital in town (the one that takes kids). I held her on the stretcher for the ambulance ride and even got peed on because I thought she still had the catheter in so she wasn't wearing a diaper.

We were admitted at 4 am, and began to feel some relief after Jenna cried very hard (at least she was responding) through the initial processes with the nurses. Our nurse really put me at ease and talked me through all the questions and concerns I wanted to talk about. Jenna slept off and on between breathing treatments, a CT scan, and beginning to eat and drink again. After getting some rest, she seemed like herself again: smiling, playing peekaboo, reading books, making animal sounds. Thank you, Lord!

Jenna's doctor came in at 1 pm and told us the CT scan was clear. He told us he was unsure at this point what caused the seizure. At first we were told it was probably caused by a fever, but he said her fever was not high enough or a drastic enough change to be the cause. He thinks her upper right lobe pneumonia was caused by her aspirating (inhaling fluid into the lungs) at some point during the seizure. He prescribed an antibiotic and told us to bring her back in a few days and then three weeks for further evaluation regarding the cause. A few possibilities could be a seizure disorder or her MMR vaccination she received nine days earlier.

Now we're at camp, enjoying the sweet people here, and trying to get well. Jenna's stomach does not agree with her antibiotic, so she's been vomiting it up, and we're hoping for a new antibiotic tomorrow. Other than that, we're trying to get rest, stay hydrated, and enjoy the fun parts of camp.

Looking back, we're just so grateful. It's likely that if Lydia hadn't cried (for seemingly no reason) we would have found Jenna the next morning and she may not have lived. Wow--Lord, you've been so gracious to us. We're so thankful it happened before we got to camp where we are much farther from help or the girls' doctor. We're thankful for each day that we can enjoy each of our girls and know a little more fully that we shouldn't take any moment for granted. We're thankful that we see no lasting effects and are hopeful that this is a one-time strange event that we will never have to live through again. We're thankful for our helpful friends in Midland who brought food, visited, took care of Lydia, and treated us like family. We're thankful for the many who prayed for Jenna. In our scary, confused moments, we were blessed by the knowledge that God is trustworthy and has our best and our kids' best in mind. Thanks for reading this long account and for all of your concern and love you have shown. We'll keep you updated as we know more. We love you.

How many babies?

That has been the big question running through our minds in the past several weeks. Will we have twins again? This morning we went to the doctor to see our first sonogram, and this time we will have ONE baby. We got to hear his/her heartbeat, and the doctor says everything looks good. He did move my due date back to December 23, so this poor child will probably always share a birthday with the busyness of Christmas. I must admit, we feel a small sense of relief knowing that we aren't adding another set of twins to the crew.

Recently the girls have practiced their big sister skills, and Lydia especially loves giving kisses to our sweet friend Elena who is five months. We leave for camp tomorrow (AJ will be training this summer's kitchen director, and the girls and I get to play), so my blog is about to have another drought--sorry. Here's one cute picture of the big sisters to be. Lydia's in the front; Jenna's in the back. We'll be home in three weeks!

Switching to zone

Exciting news! We are expecting Baby #3 at the Perea household! So as AJ likes to say we'll be switching from our current man-to-man strategy to zone since the kids will soon outnumber the parents! The baby is due December 18th, so I'm eight weeks along right now and feeling fine, just pretty tired. We're thankful for the blessing of another baby joining our family!