Hallucinations, Seizures, and Hospital Visits

 Note:  This post was written in two parts.  One I started last Sunday and never finished.  I'm not even a tiny bit in the mood to rewrite it and make a cohesive post.  Blocky and real is what is happening.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

I will abstain from details, but life has been complicated this week.

I'm writing from the hospital room of one of my children.  We have been given news that makes very little sense to us that we must do our best to understand.

As time passes, I'm sure I'll post more, but I do need to be mindful of my child's privacy (which is funny given how much I do share here!).

Until yesterday, things were no more challenging than usual. 

We finished The Mysterious Benedict Society (Can you picture how mad the kids are that I refused to read the second volume aloud right now?) and started The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  We're a hair over halfway through it now.  It's been hard on Brother to process Captain Jaggery's cruelty.

We had Morning Meeting every day but Tuesday because we had Breakfast at the Park on Tuesday.

I actually asked Baymax if he had poop in his hands. 🤣🤣🤣
It's a pile of shells.

While the other kids played, Nature Angel and I choreographed the opening number for this year's American Rhythm show.

Sadly, our choreography work (and all of our music-finding, music-cutting, and other choreography) were all for naught, as we ran into problems with doing a show that included folk dances from around the world.

It turns out that anything other than being taught by a native of the culture and performing in really authentic costumes and having permission from an official of some sort is considered cultural appropriation.

Our goal was to show cultural appreciation.

With zero desire to take someone's culture and mess with it and zero desire to offend, we're changing our show theme . . . which means we're back to researching music again.

Our rehearsal year begins one month from tomorrow (Monday).  

I've got some panic rather deeply suppressed in the back of my brain (as I deal with even more urgent panic).

We almost finished cleaning out Ladybug's and Lola's bedroom--or I should say, we've finished cleaning it out, and we're almost finished putting it back together again.

Lola was my cute, competent cubby-assembling assistant.

We cleaned everything from the closet shelves to the dresser drawers to the windows to the floor, along with all of the bedding, toys, craft materials, and books.

It is a very clean room!

We had friends over a couple of times this week.

We babysat The Munchkin and Sugar Bear.

The three big boys were able to attend a friend's birthday party at a community center with a water park.   They indulged in sports and water play for several happy hours.

We had our usual library day outing.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

We have a diagnosis, and our girl is home.  We have a plan and referrals to the correct medical and mental health professionals.  

But, jumping back to the previous week:

At some point in the week, the kids had a youth temple trip!

Early Friday morning, Sir Walter Scott dropped Little Princess off at the CAP departure location so that she could get to Encampment.

It was Friday night that Ladybug needed to be taken to the hospital because she had her second round of hallucinations.  (The first round was earlier that week, and we hoped it was a one-off due to the chemicals in the nail products she'd used for the first time that day.)  This second round confirmed that it was something we had to get help with.

She was examined and released.

On the way home she seized.

With the help of 911, we made it back to the hospital very quickly.  To make a long and frightening story short, she had several more seizure-like episodes along with several other frightening symptoms.  Several different teams of doctors got involved.  Social work got involved.  Sir Walter Scott and I took turns living at the hospital with her.

Having family around and/or talking to friends on the phone made a huge difference in her well-being.

Eventually clues began to lead to a logical conclusion, and 5 days after being admitted, she came home.

We are following through with care.

And she is doing well.

The kids spent the week being watched by Nature Angel, Belle, their aunt, their grandfather, and church friends.

We ate by the courtesy of church friends who jumped at the chance to make giant meals.

Belle did some reading from The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.

The kids watched several movies.

They said that the best part of the day when Auntie R-- came over was playing cards with her.

They got to go swimming at a friend's house.

They played hours' and hours' worth of board games.

They got a library day with Dad.

Beowulf and Lola worked with our neighbor at their gardening apprenticeship (Baymax opted out).

Brother mowed the lawn here at home.

Ladybug and I spent half a day at one of the clinics recommended by the hospital.  That evening, she went with her siblings to church activities where she was greeted joyously by her friends who had been so worried about her.  She did great, and everyone had a blast having a water balloon fight and playing other outdoor games.

Then there were two dances over the weekend.  Ladybug, Brother, and Mister Man attended those, while the youngest three enjoyed movies in the absence of their older siblings.  

We attended a church picnic breakfast (at least most of us did--I stayed home with Baymax who was feeling ill).  There were two different baptisms to attend, and I helped several children prepare lessons to teach to their church classmates the next day.

Then Little Princess came home from Encampment!

On the first day, her flight won honor flight of the day, and one of her students won honor cadet of the day.

Accepting the award for honor flight of the day.
Her flight won for demonstrating cohesiveness as a team in such a short amount of time--as in on the first full day!

And this picture just makes my heart happy.

A day or two later, she herself won honor staff member of the day!

Then another of her students won honor cadet of the day.

And then her flight won honor flight of the week!

She dealt with some huge crises with her students, and she managed them with aplomb (though I am certainly grateful for the adult staff who saw her at the breaking point, took her aside for some time to talk and cry and then sent her to a "mandatory 3rd shift"--a.k.a. nap time).

And through it all, she was aware that her sister was in crisis, and she was too far away from home to do anything to help the family.  

I reached out to her as much as I felt was loving-but-not-distracting-or-overwhelming.

Anyway, I'm so proud of this kid I could burst.

And I'm so proud of all of my kids for handling the crisis at home so well.

And I'm so proud of Ladybug for getting up and working hard to get through her own crisis . . . as well as soldiering through the ongoing effects of said crisis.

Sometimes education is about so much more than books and math problems!

And speaking of books, we're just about to finish The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.