Another Piece of the Seizure Puzzle and Some Good News.....

Last Saturday we were exposed to Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease.  It's relatively mild and is similar to chicken pox in that it causes bumps (though only on the hands, feet, and in the mouth) and is something you only get once in your life.  It starts with a fever and then a day or two later, bumps appear on the hands, feet, and mouth.  It occurs mostly in children 10 and under, and mostly in the summer and in the fall.  Symptoms include:

• Fever
• Headache
• Loss of appetite
• Rash with very small blisters on hands, feet, and diaper area; may be tender or painful if pressed
• Sore throat
• Ulcers in the throat (including tonsils), mouth, and tongue

Both of my kids had all of the above symptoms.

When Madi seizured, she hadn't had a fever, however, during and after she had a low-grade fever of 101.  I noticed yesterday, when they were taking out her IVs so we could go home, that she had spots on the bottom of her feet.  Today she also has them in her mouth and in her diaper area.  Conner has spots on his hands, feet, and mouth as well.  It's not something you treat but just let it run it's course. 

Come to find out, the two possible complications are dehydration and febrile seizures (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/hand-foot-mouth-disease/overview.html).  Since Madi was developing a UTI, had just had the MMR vaccine, and was coming down with hand-foot-and-mouth disease, that very well could explain why she had a seizure.  Apparently she is already prone to them, and adding in all of those factors is just kinda like the perfect storm.  Although it stinks, if that is the reason she had the seizure, she most likely will not get them again, or at least not that often (unless we have more perfect storms ;)), which would be really nice.

Please join us in praying that the seizure was caused from all of the above factors and that seizing is now long behind us. 


In good news....

I got about 12 hours of sleep last night!  Ok, ok, that's not really our good news, but it was good news to me.  They aren't too great at letting moms sleep in the hospital, because they feel the need to ask you the same questions over and over and over again, so I was very thankful that I got good sleep last night.  We do have some AMAZING news, though!



 That means we are officially pre-approved in India!!  YEAH!!  I hadn't blogged about this yet, but they had said that the verbage in the homestudy didn't match her paperwork (basically we use different terms for the same form of spina bifida) and they were saying our homestudy needed to be revised.  Our adoption agency e-mailed them, though, saying how it actually did match, and we weren't sure if they would accept the e-mail, or make us revise the paperwork.  Thank God, they accepted it so nothing was delayed!!  Here's the rest of the timeline we are still looking at:

5.  We notify Vathsalya that you received your Article 5 so they can move your dossier through the local authorities to review and send to CARA. At the same time the embassy will forward your Article 5 to CARA. When CARA has both, they will issue your NOC (no objection certificate): takes about one month

 6. The court process can begin; Vathsalya and their lawyers handle it from here. Typically there are three court proceedings which occur over a span of about 3-6 months. At the end you’ll get your guardianship court order.

7. Then the orphanage will obtain a passport application appointment and apply for Ramya’s passport: about a month

8. We wait for the passport: about two months

9. Once the passport is received, you can move forward with travel plans to pick her up!