Maximo, Maximo, Maximo!

This poor little kid has been labeled a drama queen since the day he could reveal his personality.

In fairness he is. He has a wonderfully 'dynamic' personality, he is ridiculously intelligent - he speaks like a 3 year old, he's taught himself to count to 10 (yes himself - from listening to his older brother) . He knows his ABC's, his colours, and he generally doesn't like a single thing about being anything other than a 'big boy'!

He also knows how to top anything anyone does!

For instance, I recently mentioned I had had a hospital visit - which resulted in a fair bit of attention being focused towards me for a few days. It would seem that Max decided to see me my hospital visit and raise me, I don't know, one of the most frightening experiences of his parents lives! Max begin last Thursday having what we now know were 'drop seizures'. His poor mother assumed that he had a middle ear infection (as who would suspect that their perfectly healthy child was suddenly having drop seizures?).

This lead to a suspected 'febrile convulsion' that evening (despite Max not having a temperature). This particular seizure lasted more than 7 mins and left him unconscious for almost an hour afterwards. Long story short - Max was released from hospital 2 hours after waking, despite having no obvious source of infection (a prerequiste for febrile convulsions). Funny enough both the drop seizures and the 'grand mal' seizures reoccured the next day - culminating in approx 30 seizures in 3 days (and a 6day hospital visit!).

While this was as horrible as horrible can be - and something I wish upon no parent. What I can take from it (my blog is MY ego) is that firstly, it made me realise that what is going on in my life is quite insignificant. Secondly, we were forced to face the reality that, while this is horrible and scary and many other emotions in between, we are actually very fortunate. Things could be so much worse. One of the obvious reasons for the onset of seizures is a brain tumor - and while we don't have the confirmation that it is NOT a brain tumor, we all feel in our heart of hearts that Maximo the drama queen is around to stay for alot longer than a few years!

However, we don't know now, and we may never know what causes these seizures, possibly he will have them whenever he is unwell. That's also ok as well - we just have to make sure we all stay well, and don't share our germs with him!

2009. Can only get better from here! Just you wait and see...

January - off to a bang!

Happy New Year!
Or happy crappy start to 2009 - which can only mean things are on the rise!

2009 - wow where do I start?
I decided to end 2008 in hospital. I mean the only way to top the crappyness of 2008 was with a life threatening experience, right?

I have always had a crappy neck and back - and on my second or third beer on new years eve i decided to 'crack' my neck to relieve the tension. Needless to say it was a BIG mistake. Long story short my C1 (very top bone in your neck) was already out of place, and I made it worse = migraine = tension = pain = me feeling like my head was going to explode.
Which it turns out it almost was!!

After a couple hours I became fairly concerned as, although I hadn't had a migraine for some years, I knew they had never felt like this one. Being New Years Eve, I walked myself to the hospital (you try getting a cab - and I am a nurse - I would never call an ambulance for a 'headache') Natty escorted me and we were both astounded how seriously they were taking a migraine! Something tells me in hindsight that I looked pretty bloody terrible - terrible enough to have me in a hospital bed with a doctors undivided attention within 20 mins of my arrival to the hospital (Remembering this is one of the busiest emergency departments in Australia).

Long story short the pain was exacerbating my blood pressure which in turn exacerbated the pain (and so on) which lead me to have a blood pressure of 197/123 (for those who don't know what that means - high enough to have caused a stroke or a vessel to burst in my brain)

So after this little event, 2009 is going to be about limiting stress, looking after myself and learning to be completely happy again. Oh and staying near my family! Cause they are the ones that are there when we need them!

Happy New Year everyone, 2009 is going to be exciting to say the least! xx