Bless This Mess

Thanks everyone who left comments of concern and suggestions.

Ashley had her EEG test today at the neurologist.

Last night I stayed up with Ashley till midnight (well, she went to bed just after midnight and I wasn’t able to go to bed till 1:00.)  Paul got up with her at 4:00 and then I took her to the appointment.

They hooked her up with wires stuck all around her head and wrapped her head up like a mummy.

(sorry for the blurry picture, it was taken with a cell phone)

Then they had her do a few things like… close her eyes for 10 seconds, then open them for 10 seconds, and repeated that several times.  Then they handed her a pinwheel and told her to do short quick blows on it for 3 minutes.  Basically they wanted her to hyperventilate.

After those tests they turned the lights off and told her she had 30 minutes to fall asleep.  Since she had had less than 4 hours of sleep, I assumed it wouldn’t be a problem for her.  I was wrong.

The machine they had in the room monitoring her would get really loud for about 30 seconds and then would be quiet for about 3 minutes, then would get really loud, and then quiet.  It did that the whole time.  Another problem, the room was about 20 feet from the reception desk/waiting area, so you could hear everything that was going on.  For about 10 minutes there was a little boy (sounded like he was right outside the door) yelling and talking so loudly.

Needless to say, Ashley didn’t fall asleep.  I don’t blame her, I wouldn’t have been able to either.

After 30 minutes of trying to fall asleep, the  nurse came in and did a strobe light test on Ashley, that lasted about 2 minutes.

The nurse hopes we got what the doctor needed, but if not, we might have to go in again to redo the test.  It was so frustrating!

The funny thing is, on the way to the appointment, I had to really work at keeping Ashley awake.  But on the way home, she was wide awake and didn’t want to sleep.  So here it is, just after 1:00 and she’s finally zonked.

All told, I got just over 5 hours of sleep, and I think Paul got about 5 hours of sleep.  But unfortunately, we don’t get naps today.  I’m really hoping we don’t have to do it again, but if we do… I’m bringing a blanket from Ashley’s bed, her pillow, and a floor fan.  She’s really used to sleeping with a constant white noise, so hopefully it’ll help.

We won’t know the test results till Monday.  Hopefully they got what they needed, and hopefully, they don’t find anything wrong with her.  We’ll keep you posted!