Stressed, 3 Hour Talk, First overseas fight....

The past two days have been all over the place. On Monday my friend, who I won't name, called me for help. She has had small seizures since she was fifteen but usually she has what they call petite mal seizures, where she basically just zones out for a second. But yesterday she had her first grand mal seizure while on the phoen with her Dad, a neurosurgeon. So instead of going to work I left lunch with Nadia, and went to keep an eye on my friend. Her Dad told me what to do and not to go to the hospital unless it was longer than five minutes. We had dinner and watched movies before she got pretty tired and went to lie down. I also saw a beautiful rainbow earlier when we were driving back to my place, it was a wicked thunderstom with the sun out which was cool but there was this massive rainbow arcing across the sky... anyway.

That night turned out to be incredibly difficult. After I emailed Ryan my nightly email I watched TV a bit and settled down to go to sleep. Around 1am, just as I was dozing, I saw my friend have a grand mal seizure. It was about ten seconds long and she seemed ok, but then at 1:20am she had another one, this one a minute long. I started writing down how long they were and how long they lasted which proved to be useful later. She was on a mattress on my floor so I hopped out of bed and did what her Dad told me to... I kept her head to the side and stopped her from hitting anything the best I could. She came to and was ok and we went to sleep again around 2am. At 3:30am I woke up to hear her starting again. Her seizures always start basically in her left arm, so it would be jerking around and wake me up. This one was bigger and longer, lasting close to five minutes. When she came to again we called her Dad and he said that if she had another one, no matter how long, she had to go to the hospital. Which she wasn't too thrilled with but I told her if she had one more she was going. Sure enough around 4:00am she starts again, punching the mattress and slamming her head around... this one was huge. I literally had to fight to keep her from flipping off the mattress. It lasted almost seven minutes, her breathing was worse in this one, almost high pitched, and it seemed like an eternity before she stopped. So into the car we went.

Her neurologist is in Georgetown, the GW hospital near the Foggy Bottom metro stop, so we drove there at 4:30am. We told her Dad and her friend Jen what was going on as it was happening. We got to the hospital and somehow found our way to the ER and she was taken back straight away. As we're explaining what happened they took blood and put her on a heart monitor the doctor is just asking questions.... then her left arm starts jerking. The Doctor was like, "Are you cold?" And I jumped up and told them she was about to start another seizure. This was about 5:45 am. They held her arms and I held her head and just talked to her, trying to bring her back and calm her down. This one was awful, she clenched her jaw down and turned so red she was almost purple and was nearly foaming at the mouth. I don't know if you've ever seen anyone have a grand mal seizure, last night was my first time, and it is absoutely terrifying. I felt so helpless the entire time. I had about two hours of sleep and it was just rough. The gave her some shot that helped prevent another one from coming and it kind of made her a little loopy for awhile as we sat in the ER for ages. I was on adrenaline and couldn't sleep so I just held her hand while they ran tests.

Around 9am they released her from the ER, but her Dad wanted us to go up to the neurology department before we went home. So up we went. The ran a whole bunch of tests again and my friend told me to leave. She told me to go home and get sleep, they might admit her to the hospital, and she'd call me if she needed me. I felt awful leaving her there, but I had to meet Cat at noon and go into work so sleep was definitely needed. I ended up crashing on Cat's couch for two hours and then we went to the Washington Monument for 1:30pm. Of course we get there are realize our tickets are for 3:30pm, but luckily some lady nearby had two extra she just gave us and we gave ours to a park ranger to give to someone to use at 3:30pm. It was cool up there, I could see my apartment from one side!

In the mean time my friend in the hospital taxied home and her friend Jen came in from Minnesota to be with her and watch her. I wasn't thrilled that the hospital released her. The monitoring room they wanted to send her to for one to three days was booked and she had an MRI scheduled already for Thursday so there was no reason to keep her apparently. Anyway, then we went back and I went and hung lights for about four hours. I got 80% of the job, Rich, Mo, and Cat are going to finish the rest. The next two days I will be packing and cleaning, especially since I couldn't do that at all last night since I was watching my friend.

When I got home Jen texted me saying that she had been there about five minutes when my friend had another grand mal seizure. This one lasted about twenty minutes with a lull in the middle. She was a bit freaked so I calmed her down and they called her Dad who called the hospital. About an hour or two later Jen texted me again saying there was another one, this one even worse than the one previously, and they were going to the hospital to have her admitted. I am kind of terrified. She never had a grand mal seizure before and she had about eight now in the past twenty four hours. She can't drive until they settle this which is hard gfor the fact that she and Jen were supposed to go on a cross country road trip Saturday.

So that was my day yesterday. I caulked my walls, cleaned the stove, started the oven and floors... today I am going to the Salvation Army and packing like crazy, then meeting friends at Colonel Brooks for one last night out.

I wish Ryan was here. This is so hard, after I left her at the hospital I nearly broke down driving, all the exhaustion and fear and terror just caught up with me and I just started crying as I drove. On top of that and work and packing and cleaning I just miss him so incredibly much.

Then of course we had our first fight online today since he's been in Iraq. We managed to talk for three hours, the fight only about half an hours worth in the middle. Basically he was asking me for some certain pictures and I just don't have the time right now. It takes me ages to do those and I am not 100% comfortable with it. But during this talk my facebook told Ryan I logged off so her got mad and sent an angry message and I sent one back saying I was still there and we managed to fix things. Even though for a bit I was scared and crying like the silly worrier I am. Then I just said it was stupid, we can't waste time fighting over this crap, and it will be ok. Now, off to packing!