Family,
Well, we are flying home from our wonderful and very
memorable vacation/cruise! Mom/Donell did great, but it had a very
frightening start!
As you have all probably heard, mom/Donell had a Grand Mal
type of seizure as we were flying to Tampa, Florida. We had been in the
air for about two and a half hours of our four hour flight. We had been
talking with our friends that were traveling with us and then we settled in for
a quick nap before landing in Tampa. I was dosing in and out of sleep, when
I looked over at mom/Donell. She was very ridged with her arms were bent
at the elbows with her hands clinched in a fist close to her face. She
was unconscious, not breathing and very purple. It looked like she was dying.
I grabbed her face and started shaking it back and forth while saying
Donell, Donell. She was totally non-responsive. When it was apparent that
I could not bring her too, I got up and went back to the flight attendants to
let them know that my wife was having medical problems.
When we got back to mom/Donell she was flailing/waving her
arms around like she was off balance and she was kind of wild-eyed and
mumbling. The flight attendants got on the PA system and asked if there were
any doctors or nurses, etc., on board for a medical emergency - no one
responded. The flight attendants started putting cold towels on her head and
bringing oxygen and an emergency medical kit that they had. They had also made
contact with emergency medical people on the ground and were telling them what
had happened and what was going on.
Finally a young man came up and said that he was an
Emergency Room nurse. He sat down next to mom/Donell and took her blood
pressure, pulse, etc. He did standard testing for stroke, etc. Donell was
very, very weak and felt nauseated and still a little out of it, although she
could answer questions. The flight attendants were trying to give her club
soda, but the nurse said to bring her some apple juice (sometimes seizures can
be brought on by low blood sugar). The nurse also asked for some alcohol wipes
and told mom to smell them. This did make her feel a little better. They
continued to take her blood pressure and monitor her other vital signs and
continued to look for signs of stroke, etc. When it appeared that
mom/Donell was stable, everyone went back to their normal activities. We were
now about 40 minutes from landing in Tampa. Mom/Donell threw up three
times and was extremely weak.
When we were landing, they told everyone to remain seated
and that emergency medical personnel would be coming on board to remove a
passenger. As soon as the plane door opened medical people came rushing in with
a wheelchair and transported mom/Donell off of the plane (she was so weak that
she could not even stand). There were lots of police and medical people waiting
in the terminal for her. As soon as mom/Donell got off the plane they put her
on a gurney/stretcher and started checking out her vital signs, put her on
oxygen and were doing other emergency tests. The police also wanted her
ID to run a criminal background check on her and to see who this person really
was... Thankfully, mom/Donell checkout okay and wasn't a criminal. Once
the emergency medical response team had check her out, they immediately rush
mom/Donell and me to a waiting ambulance. Our friends who were traveling with
us were stunned and wondering what was going to happen. I had about one
second to tell them that I would call and give them an update.
We never got our luggage, they just rushed us by ambulance
to the Emergency Room of a major hospital in the area. They immediately
took her into a private room in the ER and started doing lots and lots of
tests. Mom/Donell could communicate, she was just very weak and a little
bit out of it. After some tests they took her into x-ray and then in for a CAT
scan. When she came out of the CAT scan, I noticed a marked improvement
in her mental alertness. The doctor came in and I again went over what had
happened and that mom/Donell had just finished her last radiation treatment the
day before and that she had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease
and was taking medications for that. Mom/Donell started telling the doctor that
we were departing on a cruise the next day and she really wanted to go on the
cruise. The doctor was very kind and understanding, but said that she
would not be able to go on the cruise - however, he said that he would pass the
information on to the neurologist that would be caring for her. We were told
that more tests were scheduled for the next morning. Donell, never stopped
telling all of the medical staff that she really, really wanted to go on the
cruise. After several hours in the emergency room and many tests, they
admitted her into the hospital and took us up to her room. She was still
very, very weak! The doctor told us that during a seizure like the one she had,
all of your muscles become extremely tense and it is like you are having a very
intense workout and so afterwards you are really weak and tired.
After mom/Donell was settled into her room, she wanted me
to go to the airport and get our bags and go check into the hotel. I checked
with the nurses and they thought that would be best - I gave the nurses my cell
number with strict instructions to call if there was any change in her
condition. Even though I repeatedly told mom/Donell that the cruise was
the least of my worries and that my only concern was for her health, she never
stopped telling all of the medical staff about the cruise and how badly she
wanted to go.
I got our bags at the airport and checked into the hotel,
it was then that the emotion of what had happened really hit me - for a time it
looked like mom/Donell was going to die on the plane. A thought I could
not even bear to think of!
I called mom early the next morning and the first thing
she started to tell me is how we could just check her out of the hospital
without the doctors permission and she could go on the cruise (wonder where she
got an idea like that)... I told her, that is NOT going to happen! She
was feeling really good and just wanted to get out!
When I came to the hospital that morning it seemed like
everyone knew about mom/Donell and the cruise and they were doing everything
they could to try and get all of the tests done quickly, so she could go on the
cruise.
The neurologist had come in and examined her in the
morning and said that if all of the tests checked okay, including an MRI - she
could go. He put all of the tests in STAT (rush).
Everything came out okay and we called a cab and rushed to
get our bags at the hotel (I really didn't think we would be going on the
cruise and I was still very concerned about her health - only a few hours
earlier, I thought she was going to die on an airplane - but Donell, would hear
nothing about not going) we rushed to the cruise terminal (our friends were
already onboard) and we were one of the last ones to board the ship! Just made
it, with a couple if minutes to spare!
Mom/Donell said that she was feeling fine when she went to
sleep on the plane and the next thing she knew was when she woke up to people
all around her asking her how she doing (and silly questions like what is your
name, how many fingers am I holding up, when is you birthday, what are your
children's names, etc.) Seizures are not necessarily dangerous by them self,
but since it was her first one ever, they always want to make certain that it
was not caused by a brain tumor, stroke, etc.
She seems to have no ill effects and we had a truly
wonderful time on the cruise! We did zip-lines through the jungle, went
snorkeling on a barrier reef, held and played with money's and beautiful MacCaw
parrots, swam with stingrays in the middle of the ocean and went swimming with,
and riding on dolphins, floated down a river that was inside a giant cave
system. We did lots of other really fun things, to many to list!!!
We love you all so very much and we will be so happy to be
back with all of you - safe, sound and alive! We are truly BLESSED!
(I am writing this from the plane as we fly home - they
have Wi-Fi - mom/Donell is doing fine... So far...)
