Aleah's Horrible Awful No Good Very Bad Week.

Christ, where do I begin...(I will warn you now: there will be expletives. Likely several).

Well, as some of you surmised. the Vs and I decided to move back to the States before Husband's DEROS; mainly so I can work and go to Walmart. Yes. I love Walmart that much.  I used to loathe it, but that was before I lived in a country where the PX and commissary were the size of a mini mart and my facial cleansing choices were between something called Ambi and some outdated Oil of Olay.

So, Husband, being the wonderful man he is, booked a flight back to IL and last Thursday (Korean Thursday; here it was still Wednesday) we were on our way. The first leg of our journey was uneventful; we flew from Seoul to Tokyo with just a 2 1/2 hour layover before our flight from Japan to L.A. Let me say that at this point, Little V was his usual perky, sunny, happy and gregarious self.

About an hour into our flight from Tokyo, I noticed that Little V, who was in my lap, was getting hot - and I'm not talking about a slow gradual temp rise; that boy went from 98.6 to oh-my-fucking-god he's BURNING UP in the space of about ten minutes. He seemed very lethargic, so I stripped him down, changed his barely wet diaper to a dry one, and laid him out on my lap to cool him off.  I asked a flight attendant if she or anyone might have some infant Tylenol or ibruprofen and a thermometor, which, naturally, they didn't carry.  I changed his position to try to keep cooling him, but it wasn't long before he conked right out on my shoulder. A few minutes later, he started what I thought was twitching in his sleep (which is normal; he's done it before)... however this went on for a good minute or so.  I leaned him back so I could look at him, and everything in me froze: his eyes were staring off to the side, completely out of focus, and his whole body started jerking. I knew immediately he was having a seizure; most likely a febrile seizure from his temp rising too high, too quickly.  I jumped into the aisle and looked for a FA, and of course couldn't see a single one. The family seated next to me finally started to try to flag down an attendant, but it wasn't until I actually yelled "HEY! I need some assistance!" that they came down my way. Luckily another flyer had infant Tylenol, but I still had to bathe him with icy wash clothes to keep him cool. He passed out on my shoulder again, so for the next 9 hours I held and stared at him, looking for any changes.

About an hour and a half before descent, his temp started to go up again.  His diaper was still dry, he was still lethargic, and wasn't really responding to having his name called. I called for the FA again, just before he gagged and started vomiting. After he was finished, he started convulsing again, and that was when I told the FA to have medics meet us on the plane.

We had an emergency landing and were towed the rest of the way into the airport, where LA county firemen/medics met us on board.  As we were being transported to the closest local ED, I began to notice, despite my worries, that all the medics were, well, rather hott. White white teeth, perfect smiles, tight t shirts; basically they all looked like candidates for mister June or August on one of those fireman calendars.  Upon our arrival at the ED, once again, the place was crawling with model-worthy firemen, and it finally dawned on me - these dudes were all aspiring actors and models, and the medic stuff was just their day job (gotta love L.A.)

SO, upon arriving at the hospital, the first thing the ED doc wanted to do was do a lumbar on Vincent to check for meningitis. I tried explaining several times that while Korea is smelly and a bit grungy, it's not exactly a third-world country, and finally managed to dissuade him by allowing a catheter and a few vials of blood, along with IV antibiotics. His chest xray showed bilateral pneumonia, plus he had an ear infection, so he was NOT a happy baby. After his labs were back, the doc decided to transfer him to Miller Children's for more antibiotics and observation... which is to be continued; Imma tired biyotch right now.  So, dear readers, stay tuned... we still have Nirhadji the pediatrician with the hearing impairment and lisp to cover :)