Expired Blessings & Payson’s Seizure
ONE MONTH AGO TODAY I was riding in the back of an ambulance dressed in my husbands clothes-- a pair of sweatpants at least four sizes too big for me and the first shirt of his that I happened to grab off the shelf. I had no makeup on, hadn’t brushed the morning tangles from my hair, and was trying not to kill the medic with my breath as I answered questions.
"Yes. Full term delivery. No complications. Vaginal birth."
"Explain how the seizure started." The medic asked scribbling notes on his clipboard. My mind flipped back to the events of the morning-- amazing how just thirty minutes felt so long ago.
Wednesday morning. It was Wednesday morning, about 9:30 am.
I had been awake for a short while, nursing Payson when I noticed something strange. His right arm was jerking. It took less than a handful of seconds to realize that something was wrong. My heart leaped to my throat. His tiny arm was jerking in a perfectly rhythmic way. I quickly unlatched him and rolled him on his back, thinking maybe the change of positions would fix it. He lay there, calmly looking up at me with blue eyes, left arm still jerking weirdly. Was it a pinched nerve or something? My mind was struggling to understand why this was happening. The only way I can describe it was that he looked... glitching.
He looked like a battery operated toy glitching out. It wouldn't stop. I couldn't make it stop. And Payson couldn't make it stop. It was completely involuntary. A creeping fear began to inch through my body. Seizure. I scooped up my baby and flung open my bedroom. Payson’s arm was still jerking. David’s brother Robert happened to be walking down the hallway. "Robert, get Kim."
"What--" he started."NOW." I yelled. Robert raced upstairs and I held Payson against my pounding heart. Kim came quickly down the hall. We met in the doorway. I held Payson out to her. "Kim, I think he's having a seizure."
Kim took him. "What in the world...?" Her face was serious as we watched the arm jerk over and over again. I stood there feeling completely helpless and feeling like my baby was broken. Everything inside me screamed that something was very, very wrong. Kim laid him on the bed. "I don't like this." She said in a quiet, low tone. We continued to watch Payson's left arm and now his left leg jerk. "I think you need to get ready to go the hospital."
I was already frantically pulling on the first clothes I grabbed off the shelf. Suddenly, the left side of his face started to contort and jerk along with the rest of his left side. My heart crumpled inside my chest. I was dizzy and shaky. "He's having a stroke!" I cried. My mind was I already thinking about the terrifying possibilities. Paralysis. Brain damage. Death.
"We need to go now." Kim snatched Payson up and ran from my room.
I grabbed my diaper bag, throwing things in, and forced my feet into shoes. Upstairs Kim was yelling for Jay and Erik, David’s dad and brother. "We're going to the hospital he needs a blessing." She turned to me. "Do you want to hold him?"
"No."
I didn't think I could hold him when my body felt so weak. In that moment of panic, I knew giving him a blessing was what we should do, but my head was screaming he's running out of time. Watching my baby jerk and contort and not know why it was happening or how to make it stop was pure terror. It felt like every second was precious.
As the family gathered around Payson for the blessing, I felt Renee's arms around me. I was so grateful for her as we cried together. Erik annointed Payson with consecrated oil and Jay gave the blessing.The blessing was short and immediately comforting-- the doctors at the hospital would know what was wrong, and Payson would recover.In the car, as Kim drove, I held a stiff and jerking Payson. I was terrified he was going to stop breathing.
The one person I wanted here was my dad. My Air Force medic father who always knew what to do in situations like these. I called him, trying not to sound too frantic, but the words spilling out of my mouth giving me away. "Dad we're in the car on our way to the hospital, Payson is having a seizure. What do I do?"
"Call an ambulance."
We met the ambulance in a store parking lot just off the highway. Which is where I was now, in the back of the ambulance, strapped to the side of the ambulance in a harness-like seat belt. Payson was in his car seat, strapped to the stretcher. By this point, the medic confirmed that Payson was having a seizure. I didn't know that seizures could be only on one side of the body. The medic had called it a "focal seizure." Payson's temperature was normal, the glucose heel prick results were normal, his respiration and heart rate was normal, everything was normal except that his left leg was still seizing. The medic looked at his jerking leg, and checked the time. "He's been having a seizure for about thirty minutes total. That's a long time." He said in a low voice.It was strange to be in the back of an ambulance speeding towards the hospital and be feeling ...calm. I felt calm, I kept replaying the words of the blessing, "The doctors at the hospital will know what is wrong, and Payson will recover" in my head. I believed the assurance of the blessing with every part of me. The terror I'd felt was slipping away, replaced by faith.
The medic broke my train of thought. "I'm surprised. You are cool as a cucumber for a first time mom. You should see some of the hysterics I've seen." He said, shaking his head. "Thanks." I said, appreciating his compliment.
When we got to the hospital, a team of nurses and doctors were waiting for us. The doctors examined Payson on the table while I answered basically the same questions that I already answered with the medic. Payson's seizure had finally stopped and he was alert and looking around the hospital room. I felt an arm around my waist. I turned around, surprised to see David. David had come straight from work to meet me in the hospital. Payson's temperature had been taken again, and this time, it showed a slight fever. With David and Kim there, the doctor explained that it was probably an a febrile seizure. Some babies can't tolerate fevers and seizures are their body's reaction to a fever. Some babies have fevers accompanied by seizures throughout childhood. Payson would have about a fifty percent chance of having more seizures in the future.
As things calmed down, David went back to work, and Kim stayed with me. Payson's fever was monitored, and the doctor returned after consulting with a pediatric specialist. The told us that there were three things that made Payson's seizure unusual. First, febrile seizures don't usually start until the baby is six months old, Payson was only four months old. Second, Payson's seizure had lasted a really long time-- about 30 minutes, and finally, and the seizure was focal (meaning it was only on one side of his body) which was also atypical.
The doctor suggested we have a spinal puncture performed to remove some of the fluid from his spine and test it for possible infection, which could have caused the seizure. After some discussion, we opted to have the spinal puncture done. Results came back (gratefully) negative for infection, and we are discharged from the hospital about 7:30 PM. I was completely physically, emotionally, and mentally drained.
Back at home, my healthy, rough-and-tumble baby boy suddenly seemed so fragile; his body was floppy and weak from the combination of fever and seizure. For the next few days, I was terrified he was going to have another seizure. His jerky baby movements sent my head racing and nights were spent with a thermometer by my side, fear of sleeping with the the lights off, and nightmares of seizures. But, there was comfort in remembering the blessing and an unexpected tender mercy-- another mother in our ward had a daughter who had febrile seizures. I was so grateful for her advice, experience, and comfort.
It wasn't until days and weeks later that I gained some perspective from Payson's seizure. My whole life I've grown up receiving priesthood blessings. There are things I've struggled with, needed comfort for, or sought direction on and I have asked for blessings again and again. Many times in blessings I have been promised healing. And more often than not, I'm embarrassed to say I've doubted. In the very moment when promises of healing or comfort were given to me in a blessing, I have immediately doubted the Lord's ability to fulfill his promises when what I was struggling with seemed so beyond even his ability to fix. In contrast, when Payson had his seizure, and was given a blessing, I didn't question it. It wasn't for me, and I believed every word because it was for my son. My perfect, innocent, infant son who needed help that I couldn't give him for the first time in his life. I needed those promises to be real, and I felt that the spirit calm my heart and confirm to me that the promises were real.
My mission president used to tell us that "blessings don't have an expiration date", and that one blessing is sufficient. He was trying to discourage some of the missionaries from receiving too frequent of blessings for the same issue. I don't think I really understood what he meant until Payson's seizure, which left me pondering past blessings I'd received throughout my life.
As I reflected, I came to realize that even the promises from past blessings which I hadn't believed at the time they were given, had slowly been fulfilled one by one.
Blessings. Don't. Expire.
Whether they are given when we are ready to believe (like I was with Payson's seizure) or whether they are fulfilled little by little as we grow in faith, the Lord does fulfill every promise he makes. Even blessings that we may not have faith for today are still valid and waiting for us tomorrow-- whether its a promise in a patriarchal blessing or in a simple blessing of comfort and healing-- one day we will stand in grateful amazement of the Lords power as we realize that his arm has been revealed in our life.
The trick is not letting your faith expire first.
I am not glad that my son had a seizure or that he may continue to have seizures throughout his childhood, but I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be tutored by the Lord through this experience. My faith has been strengthened and I have found firm conviction in the Lord's promises. I am so grateful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints which which holds the keys of priesthood power-- the same power that Christ had to organize his church and to administer to the sick. I'm grateful for the miracles that we experience in our life as a result of having access to this power. Whether Payson has one seizure or many more, and whether the Lord decides to heal him or not, my faith is in the Lord. Today, I'm grateful for promises of peace, comfort, and healing that never expire.
