From birth to today...

A note to the reader:
Read as much or little of this blog as you like. I only ask that people not read part and fill in the blanks with their own speculations. Meg despises that kind of trashy tabloid journalism.

First five days of independence:
Meg Avery Throne was born at 8:54 p.m., August 3rd, 2009, weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces, and measuring 20.75 inches in length. She came quickly: Jen labored for under two hours, and in two strong pushes Meg was with us. She cried for a few minutes and promptly fell asleep. Clearly a different personality from her big sis who, from birth, has never been bashful about announcing her presence.

Tuesday evening, we saw her give us a Heisman pose, a stretching of the arms, legs, and neck which resembled the college football trophy. This was the first of what we would come to learn were seizures. Wednesday we took her home. Nurses had not witnessed Meg's poses, and from our descriptions, they saw no cause for concern. Into Wednesday evening, we saw several more of these, and noticed her eyes rolling back. She would hold her breath and turn bright red, and then cry afterward. We video-recorded an event so we could show our doctor, but he would not be into the office until Friday.

Thursday night, while I played softball, Meg's grandmothers paid a visit. They both agreed that Meg's poses were extremely troubling and were becoming much more frequent. So at the recommendation of two grandmas and two registered nurses, we took Meg to the emergency room at Fulton County Health Center. Thank God for grandmas. And aunts.

The Fulton County Health Center is a fine institution, but it is not particularly well-equipped to treat a three-day-old newborn having seizures. After giving their best effort, doctors conferred and decided that Meg needed care that St. Vincent's Children's Hospital could give. Meg took her first ride on LifeFlight in the early morning hours of Friday. Jen and I drove to the hospital, and when we arrived at 4 a.m., nurses and the resident doctor had given Meg an I.V. and had begun to draw fluids for testing. These people have the exact skills and practice that our baby needs, and the optimistic calmness that my wife needed to see that morning. Meg immediately had a highly recommended neurologist working overtime on her case.

Since Thursday night, the infant has had many vials of blood taken, a catheter, oxygen assistance, two LPs (spinal taps), two EEGs, an MRI, and a CT, and just about every other acronym in the field of pediatric medicine.

Progress:
Following the doctor's observation of two full-blown seizures Friday, Meg was placed on phenobarbacalifragilisticexpialidocious. I just know it controls seizures. Thursday she was having about two per hour; after the phenobarb, she has had two documented in two days, and these are called non-clinical (you can't see them without EEG equipment). And there was great rejoicing.

On Saturday, the MRI report, which examines a million (exaggeration) scans of her brain, revealed nothing abnormal in her physical development. This means that her brain looks the way it should, ridges and blood vessels and all. And there was great rejoicing. Saturday night, without the nurse's permission, Meg removed her breathing tube for the third time, and the nurse humored her by taking it off for good.

Relatively speaking, Sunday has been the best day of her life. She was mercifully afforded a day of rest: no poking, sticking, gluing, waterboarding, etc. The EEG monitors were deemed unnecessary. The physician overseeing Meg's entire case allowed her about five hours to "declare herself" before he would order a feeding tube to get her some much needed nourishment. By this, he meant that we needed to see some activity and get her to eat by 1 p.m. She must have overheard this, because the instant we switched to breast milk, she guzzled like a true Irish-Catholic (of which we are neither). She drank and pooped well, and she actually was awake when the doctor examined her Monday morning. The I.V. is unhooked and is only used when she gets a syringe dose of the drug I can't spell. The doctor noted her physical improvements since Saturday, but her reflexes still are not as strong as he wants to see.

Currently, Doc is taking a two-faceted (that means two-sided L.T.) approach to Meg's case. He is working to get her healthy enough to take home and treat with oral doses of pheno-bla-bla-bla. We will likely take her home at some point while the labs and specialists continue to search for the precise cause(s) for her seizure. Infection has been ruled out, so they have turned their examination to metabolic causes. Of course, I know all about amino acids and enzymes from my extensive training in medical school; I just don't want to bore my reader. My one, lone, reader. Too late.

This appears completely treatable, but Meg needs to regain a lot of strength and avoid more seizures. Her age really works in her favor for recovery, but she is still exhausted most of the time.

Please pray. She has a family who has diligently held her, encouraged her, fawned over her. She has friends that she has not met who are eager to meet her. She has prayer coming from five different states, possibly more. She has hundreds of people praying across the fruited plain. And the greatest comfort is the faith that she has a father who loves her more than I do, and folks, I love her quite bit.