A Happy Ending

An update about Hosanna, written by my niece, Carly:

The Brain Infection

We had just gotten back from a weekend trip to Costa Rica (more about that later) the previous night. At breakfast Hosanna was her happy, hungry, normal self. Within a few hours she had the following symptoms: fever, vomiting, seizures, and blindness. Oh yeah, and she also fell off the bed and got a concussion. All before lunch-time. The scariest thing was that she couldn't see or respond to anyone. She was obviously in a lot of pain as well. She alternated between screaming and passing out. I was expecting Enoch home from work any minute and as soon as he arrived he grabbed Hosanna and went straight to the hospital. The doctor thought the only problem was the concussion and sent her home after several hours on an IV. We knew something was very wrong and brought her back within the hour. Once the doctor knew the whole story he suspected meningitis and ordered an ambulance ride to a hospital on the mainland where they have more medicines.

Enoch went with her that night and I stayed by the phone at home. The second hospital didn't have the equipment to test and diagnose the disease so they used the shotgun approach and put Hosanna on several antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory, and some anti-convulsion something or other. Hosanna had another seizure that night and was not doing very well, so in the morning they took another ambulance ride, this one 3 1/2 hours, to a children's hospital in David. The other kids and I took an early flight and met them there. They were hoping to run some tests and figure out what type of infection it was so they would know how to better treat it. Poor Hosanna went through several blood tests, a CAT scan, a spinal tap, and an MRI. Everything came back clear. Having thus ruled out a bacterial infection, they assume it must have been a viral infection that caused swelling in her brain which produced all the scary symptoms. Viral infections aren't nearly as fatal or permanently damaging as bacterial ones, so this was very very good news.

The recovery took a full week but Hosanna is back to her normal cheerful self now. We are so grateful to be home again and grateful for all the prayers and emails throughout this whole ordeal. Life is sweet. In a painful way.