Yesterday was a lazy gray Sunday. The kind of day that begs you to find a cozy blanket and snuggle down with an old black and white not caring if you doze off midway through. That's just what we did, after lunch and running errands we each found a little space to nestle into. Bill ventured out in the late afternoon to pick up dog food and decided to grab a couple frozen pizzas, an easy day calls for an easy dinner.
By 7pm dinner was eaten and cleaned up. Bill, Sophie and I sat together in the living room, we watching tv she listening to music.
Suddenly she looked up and moaned, 'I'm dizzy' she yelled! 'Everything is blurry' take a deep breathe I calmly said what's blurry? The TV, you everything!!! She then said she was very dizzy! That things were going side to side not spinning but moving. Her eyes began to ping pong back and forth. She stood up, then quickly sat back down. 'Why is this happening again?' She wailed. Bill had her come sit between us and I kept asking her to take slow deep breaths- she started to squeeze her eyes shut tightly, a few tears escaped between the lids. We gave her water, a cool cloth on her head and just when we thought she was going to be fine she started to gag and cough, saying she couldn't breathe, screaming, crying and yelling that she was dizzy. This went on for about 45 minutes. We turned off lights, we turned other lights on, we offered water- she kept missing the table as when she wanted to set it down. We gave her a heavy blanket then opened the door. She liked the air and hated the light so I took her outside and walked up and down the street with her. Finally we seemed to be over the worst part. A short time later she wanted to go to bed. I put a tiny bit of lavender oil on her tummy and rubbed it around and around. Placed a weighted blanket on her, turned the bedside lamp on and put Frozen on very softly. Her eyelids were heavy as I left the room. An hour later I went back in to turn the tv off and her eyes flew open I left again. Emily came home a couple hours later and went to check on her she quickly opened her eyes as soon as she stepped into the room. It felt like she came into our room every hour to ask if it was morning, to ask for water and once to ask for a cupcake. At 6am she again said she was dizzy and asked me to lay down beside her in her bed. As soon as I laid down she started to talk- speaking rapidly and non stop. She jumped up and got dressed and was moving all over the place. She insisted on going to school since Monday is music day, her favorite!
After she left and after coffee I began to call her 'team', the pediatrician, her therapist, the school psychologist and her psychiatrist leaving messages explaining this latest episode- she had a similar one last month.
The pediatrician called back quickly advising me to check with the psychiatrist. The school psychologist said she didn't know what it was but didn't think it was a panic attack. Her therapist promised to look at the video I sent and get back to me and the psychiatrist has not yet called back.
Bill and I feel we are in that same horrible spot we were in four years ago before her diagnosis. All the professionals just telling us 'she is very complicated' ' this is extremely unusual' in other words we feel lost. All I want to do is help her. Take away whatever is causing her this fear and stop these episodes but I have no answers and the people who are supposed to help have no information.
