Update from New York - emergency ward!

Sunday, 13 March 2011

HI STT Community:

Thanks so much for the update. It all sounds really exciting and I am glad it is all going smoothly. 

Isn't it amazing how people who do not even know us or Stella have been so generous - I am sure your PR efforts have been a major force in that.  

The wireless Internet seems to be working again do I will try to send through some photos today.

2 hours after I sent you that update Stella ended up at the emergency room.  She had a seizure during dinner that wouldn't stop. She kept shaking, her right hand was like a claw and the right side of her mouth drooped- it was very scary and like nothing we have ever seen before. We raced back to our room, gave her emergency medication and then downstairs to find a taxi.

Luckily one of the house volunteers saw us run out of the dining room- he was waiting for us downstairs and gave us a ride to the nearest ER.  Meanwhile Stella was unresponsive and limp and breathing shallow- all this time we are wondering if there will be permanent brain damage or if she will go into a coma. We ended up at New York Presbyterian hospital, which has a separate pediatric ER. Stella was seen to right away- she was still seizing when we arrived, which meant she had been in the seizure for 25 minutes.  She slowly came out of it and slept for an hour and a half.  A med student gave Sophie a children's activity kit and put on a DVD for her while we waited for Stella to wake up. Sophie was very cool about it all and really well behaved through it all. Later, she got ice cream too from a nurse!  We were discharged around midnight.  Stella seems to be okay apart from being really wobbly.  

Of course, the ER visit was not covered by insurance so it will be interesting to see what the final bill will be- it was US$500 upfront and the rest will be billed to us back in Hong Kong- the hospitals here have complicated billing systems.

So we need to see the neurologist on Monday to figure out what to do next as Stella's surgery is not for another week.

You can put this on the Facebook page if you like as this is the type of stress we deal with every day. We do not know why this horrible seizure happened- maybe jet lag, who knows- her little brain is a minefield!

Thanks for all your work- you are all Stella’s angels!

Xx Alison