It's hard to know where to begin. My feelings are still so raw right now, but I need to get this all out so that our family can begin to heal. It all started last friday the 1st. I was feeding Isaac and set him down on our ottoman to take a cake out of the oven. He was just starting to rollover, and I should of known better, but it was just going to be a second. Next thing I heard was a thud and a cry. I quickly scooped him up and comforted him. Then suddenly he slumped in my arms, I laid him back and his eyes rolled back in his head, his breathing went shallow and his whole body went limp. I started screaming his name and pinching him but he wasn't responding. I quickly called 911 and it felt like and eternity befor they arrived. They started giving him oxygen and he started to cry, but the rest of his body was still not responding. David arrived just as they were putting him in the ambulance and we rushed to the emergency room.
We spent the next hour trying to find out what was going on with our son. I had told the doctor that I had slipped on some books in our living room earlier in the week, but he was pretty sure this had nothing to do with a fall and wanted to check him for menongitis. They decided to do a CT scan just to rule out any head trauma. A few minutes later a nurse came in and told another nurse that life flight was on their way. The doctor came in and explained that the scan revealed and old bleed and a new bleed and Isaac was being transfered to Harborview the leading trauma center in Seattle. The next thing we see is two police officers enter the room and start questioning David and I. They inform us that we have to stay behind and answer more questions while our son has just been airlifted to Seattle. I assumed this would only be a few minutes but almost 2hours later we were able to leave and drive another 2 hours to see our son.
Once we arrived at the hospital we were brought to another room where we were questioned again by doctors and a social worker. Finally they brought us to our son who was sleeping soundly and stable. Gary and Karol Payne (family friends) met us their and Isaac was given a blessing. Five minutes later a social worker walked in our room and told us that our child was in the custody of the state handed us a card and told us to call the number then she left the room. We could only have supervised visits with our son, but the nurses at Harborview were very accomadating and stayed with us while we waited to see what was happening with our son.
Over the next couple days and many neurosurgeons later Isaac had fluid on his brain and only one bleed that had stopped. It was determined that Isaac was born with extra fluid on his brain that made him more susceptible to minor falls, infact he didn't even have to hit his head that a simple jarring could have resulted in the same trauma. They decided to do a tap throught the soft spot on his head. They inserted two needles on either side of it and extracted 25 to 30 CCS of fluid (a lot of liquid). Isaac immediately began to show major signs of improvement. He was laughing and rolling all over and grabbing at everything. We decided that the pressure had probably been there for a long time and it wasn't until he fell that we were able to find out what was going on.
Meanwhile our fight for custody was still going on. We finally had a meeting with CPS and they released the supervised visits and told us that if the doctors were still reporting the same information then Isaac would be released into our care at discharge. Isaac continued to improve so we were tranfered to Childrens Hospital on Monday. That's when another Social Worker came in and told us that our child was placed into state custody again and that we were going to have to have a meeting to determine whether he came home with us or not.
Long story short. We contacted a lawyer and gathered all the friends, family, and our pediatrician and went to the meeting. It was determined that there were no finding child abuse and that there were no grounds to keep Isaac out of our home.
Isaac was finally released on friday afternoon to his parents and is still progressing well. We still have checkups scheduled at Childrens, but his prognosis is good.
The following is a very short story of all the hellish events we have endured, and doesn't even begin to explain the emotional roller coaster, but I need to take this opportunity to thank all of our friends, family, and medical staff who helped us through this trying time. Love to all!!!!!
