Your eight month post recovery started out strong. You started to hands/knees crawl, keeping your stomach up off the floor (also known as creeping). You learned how to side step around the corners of the coffee table both to the left and the right. It was harder for you to go to the left due to the weakness in your left side. You are able to find a toy hidden under a bucket, but not hidden behind a screen yet. You learned to bend your knees to go from standing to kneeling or sitting. Before you would just lean way back then plop down on your butt. You figured out how to use your walker to go forward. You can control it’s speed, but not turn yet.
You were having a stellar month developmentally, then towards the end of the month I noticed that you were a bit off. You didn’t want to stand quite as much and you were a bit unbalanced (more than usual). You were also fussy. This lasted only two days. You dad didn’t see much a difference in you, but it was enough to worry me. So your dad and I pushed the doctors to do a follow up CT scan and 24 hour EEG just to make sure all was well. Your dad and I drove separate to the hospital for the procedure since you dad had to go on to work afterwards. We had to sedate you for the scan so that you wouldn’t move during the scan. You fought the sedative. They say usually if a child fights sleep, they will fight the sedative. You were not happy at all, you cried and thrashed around in my arms until you fell asleep. Poor guy. I can only assume it is hard and scary for you to feel that loss of control from the sedative after all the sedation you went through when you were injured and in the hospital. We had the scan and then went upstairs to visit your old hospital doctors and nurses. They were happy to see you and pleased with your progress. All seemed to be going well.
Half way home from the hospital we got a call that you had a new brain bleed that we had to immediately return to the ER at the hospital. My heart fell in my chest, for a minute I couldn’t breathe. No…not a bleed, after everything you have gone though. We couldn’t lose you now. I looked back at you. You seemed to be sleeping in your car seat. I called your name, but you didn’t respond. Please, please, please God let my baby be OK. I couldn’t tell if you were sleeping heavily due to the sedative or if the bleed was causing a problem. I couldn’t have your dad check you since he was in a separate car. I am a careful driver who stays within the speed limit, yet that day, we made it back to the hospital in record time. Your dad tried to keep up with you the best he could on our way back to the hospital. Your dad and I were in a panic by the time we got to the ER. Fortunately you had been sleeping from the sedative. You were admitted to the hospital for observation and to run some additional tests. You had an MRI conducted. Your 24 hour EEG showed no seizure activity thankfully. We spent 6 days in the hospital total. We spent 5 in one hospital waiting, waiting, waiting for a transfer to Children’s Hospital. The reason for your bleed was a secondary, spontaneous bleed due to your initial injury. Your neurosurgeon told us that your damage to the right of your brain (the damaged areas of the brain die off and shrink) was causing an uneven pull to the right which was putting stress on the delicate blood vessels which connect to your skull. You will have a sensitivity for a while that we have to monitor with scans every couple of weeks. In addition to spontaneous bleeds any type of bump to the head or acceleration/deceleration could cause more bleeds. That means that as you get older you won’t be able to play on trampolines or bounce houses/carnival rides, etc. It was a scary, exhausting 6 days in the hospital. When you finally got to go home, you were so excited. You crawled up to each of your toys in the living room and played with each one for a minute, smiling before you moved onto the next one.
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