Begin the Beguine (part one)

           On February 16th, 2013, when Rowan was six weeks old, he suddenly had a seizure. His eyelids fluttered, his head snapped back several times in rhythm and eyes strayed fiercely to the left. These movements lasted for about 40 seconds, then ceased. His Mommy, Daddy, and Aunt Rachel all paused for a moment, a little perplexed, and before they could even voice their concerns about what had just happened, it happened again. Daddy quickly whipped out his cell in order to capture a video of Rowan's "performance" to show the doctor. After calling Row's doctor everyone began getting ready to head to the children's hospital about half an hour away, then the seizures starting to grow in strength and number; they were right on top of each other. So we drove, quickly, to the nearby emergency room instead.
           After a veritable three stooges routine from the nurses, (it took three of them to land an IV and one of them walked in with her cell phone, keys, and shades, then proceeded to touch my son's blood without washing her hands), he was finally able to be shipped over the the hospital we'd intended to go to, in an ambulance, no less.
          This is when the horror set in. Standing around that room watching needles and tubes, and bumbling women in cartoony scrub tops muddle up my sad little convulsing baby began to send me into a genuine panic attack. I was trying desperately not to sob aloud because it would lead to an uncontrollable fit, which would be counter productive. So I held strong...as well as I could, and much more so due to the presence of my best friend, who was, fortunately, paying us a weekend visit at the time.
         Then we arrived at the Children's Hospital, where we thought we'd find some answers..ha! We spent several hours in the boiling hot emergency room...waiting and waiting to be admitted. Several very young girls with various initials after the names on their name tags came in to fumblingly poke and prod my poor man with various needles and vials, all the while taking it in turn to ask us the same series of questions over and over and over. We took advantage of this frustrating time to alert our family of the situation. All of them were hopelessly far away in the distant land of Florida, which is our fault, since we chose to migrate to the midwest about two years prior, but in those first frightening hours the distance felt insurmountable.
         We were finally admitted and began a four day stay that proved to be full of a great deal of testing, blood drawings, EEGs, and MRI and having my be-diapered darling tethered to his bed by heart monitors, etc. After trying three  anti-epileptic medications we were sent away with them to await the results of said tests at home. Little did we know just how quickly we would be returning...