It was a little before 9:00 that morning when Laurel started making sounds like she was going to throw up again.  I quickly bent down to help her sit up and I held the bucket in front of her.  Instead of being limp like she had been earlier, she was tense.  Not rigid, but tense.  After throwing up just a tiny bit, she started breathing very heavily.  Almost the way someone would sound if they were struggling to get enough breath.  I laid her head back down on the pillow and realized that she wasn’t awake at all.    She wasn’t aware of what was going on.  I couldn’t get her to respond to me.

“Baby, can you hear me?”

“It’s Momma, Honey, can you look at me?”

“Laurel, Honey, can you open your eyes for me?”

Now I can feel myself freaking out.

“Don’t worry, Baby, I’m going to call Aunt Linda.  She’ll come get Travis and I’m going to get you to the hospital.  I’m right here Baby.”

I called Matt’s sister, Linda.  She lives on the next street.  She was scheduled to be a substitute at the elementary school that day, but from the tone of my voice she said she’d be right over.

On the way to our house, Linda saw our friends, Megan and Michelle, they were out walking.  Linda was still worried because I had sounded panicked on the phone and she had a bad feeling.  So she asked them to follow her to my house so they could take Travis if she needed to go to the hospital with me.  Michelle immediately called her husband, Kirk, who is an ER Nurse.  They all made their way to my house. Joined by more neighbors along the way.

I did a mad dash to get Laurel to the car.  I carried Laurel out to the couch; I was still begging her to respond to me:

“Please look at me baby”, her eyes were slightly open, but she had no point of focus.

“Can you squeeze my hand Honey?  Laurel, please squeeze my hand.”

“It’s your Momma, Baby, I’m right here and I’m taking you to the hospital.  They’ll fix you right up, don’t worry Sweetheart”

Linda arrived and I threw Travis’ shoes to her as I was grabbing my keys… where were my keys?  I don’t ever change where I keep my keys, but they weren’t there.  So where were they?  I did a frantic run throughout the house looking for any sign of keys.

It later turned out to be a blessing that I couldn’t find my keys, since I quickly called for an ambulance.  If I had found my keys, I may have tried to drive Laurel to the hospital myself and she would not have gotten such high quality care as quickly as she did.

By now, I was on the phone with a 911 operator and I was trying to explain the situation to her.  But all I knew was that my daughter was perfectly healthy and yet now she was completely unresponsive.

“She’s had a little headache, that’s all.  She’d just been a little nauseous.  She’s perfectly healthy.  She’s perfectly healthy.”  My brain just kept repeating that she was perfectly healthy.

Panic was setting in more and more and I couldn’t remember my address.  I was trying to give them my phone number, but what was my address?  They need my address!  A deep breath helped me to focus so I could tell the ambulance where to come.

The 911 operator wanted to stay on the phone with me until the ambulance arrived.

Absolutely not.

I handed the phone to Linda (forgetting to mention that someone was on the other end) and I knelt on the floor next to the couch.  I put my arms around my daughter and I begged her to look at me, to answer me.  I laid next to her and sobbed my heart out as I listened to her labored breathing.

The paramedics arrived.  Apparently I just kept repeating that Laurel was perfectly healthy, so Linda had to step in to recite the events of the morning.

I know now that Laurel was having seizures.  The medical report would call them Grand Mal Seizures (these are the grand-daddy of all seizures).  I still don’t understand how a seizure can look like that.  Apparently seizures can come in all shapes and sizes.  The paramedics didn’t even assess Laurel in the house.  They immediately carried her out to the ambulance.  Somewhere in the chaos I asked Linda to call Matt and tell him what was going on.

I had no idea what was going on.

It was about 9:15am when Matt got the call from Linda.  He was just about to arrive at his work in Ogden.  Linda told him that an ambulance had come to pick Laurel up from the house and that she was unresponsive.  She told him to meet us at Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City.

Matt later said that he had a bad feeling.  He was immediately worried and felt that Laurel was in serious trouble as he turned around and headed towards the hospital.

I don’t remember if Laurel was on a stretcher, or if someone carried her out of the house.  It’s all a blur.  I remember running out to the ambulance and wiping my face so that I could give Travis (my 3yr old) a big smile and tell him that he was going to get to play with his friend Zoey today!    I gave him a kiss and told him to have so much fun.  Then I was running to the ambulance.  Fortunately, Travis was completely unaware of the emergency unfolding.

Linda calling Matt