Many of you know, via Facebook, that one of my good friends and daycare moms, Jeannette Rossi, came to Tim’s rescue a couple of weeks ago with Air Conditioning.
Tim has a very serious seizure disorder.
I’ll give you some history. Tim had not had any seizures at all until he was almost 6. We had just wrapped up Alex’s 18 birthday party and the guests had left, with the exception of my sister in law Kirstine and her kids. All of a sudden, Tim was having a Grand Mal seizure. I can assure you, it scared the hell out of me. I was certain that this was the end of his life. He stopped breathing twice in the car on our way to the ER. They stabilized him in the ER, stopping the seizure and giving him oxygen. A follow up visit to the Dr the next week was followed by Tim’s first seizure medication. Except the medication seemed to make him dizzy and nauseous.
Now, you may be asking yourself how I could possibly tell if Tim is dizzy…:)
I admit, much of his life does seem to be lived in a perpetually dizzy state, but as his mom, I could tell this was different. AND Tim was an emerging walker. How is he supposed to be learning to walk if he’s dizzy? And nauseous? After talking with his doctor, we weaned him off of the med, and waited to see what would happen. Nothing happened. Tim did not have another seizure for more than 6 months. And then he had another GIGANTIC seizure. We scheduled an EEG up at Primary Children’s hospital. When the neurologist came in with the results, she asked how many seizures Tim had been having. When we told her two in the last 8 months, she was shocked. She informed us that with the amount of electrical activity going on in his head, he should be seizing constantly. Since he wasn’t, we decided to hold off on the medication until it became necessary.
Which it did, the next summer. We realized that the heat seemed to trigger his seizures, especially those days over 100.
Fast forward to today. Tim is on two very serious seizure medications, and has occasional breakthrough seizures when he is seriously triggered. We know the heat does it, but when we had an air conditioning company come in last year to give us an estimate, we were informed that we would need to replace our furnace also. A couple of other companies confirmed the initial diagnosis. Money-wise, that could not happen for a couple of years, so we were simply committed to trying to keep Tim out of the heat.
This summer has been particularly difficult and we have had a very hard time keeping Tim seizure free.
Enter Jeannette, who, when she discovered what we were dealing with, was moved to action on Timothy’s behalf. A friend of hers offered to put up the entire amount (Air and Furnace) so that we could have the installation as soon as possible, with the idea that whatever was raised in the fundraising would go to at least partially reimburse him.
It happened in the next two days. The Heating and Cooling Guys came over, and stayed til the amazing deed was accomplished.
For the first two days, Timothy simply sat on one of the vents and smiled:)
Here’s the next thing, the fund raising has sort of stalled around $1230. It would be so great if somehow the very generous man who put up the money initially could be paid back.
You know I am a very independent person, and at first, I was embarrassed by people’s coming to our aid.
BUT.
I love my son. I love that people who don’t even know my precious Timothy are so anxious to help him live a better life. I love that my friends have already been so generous.
Thank you. So much.
I am going to add the link to the fundraiser, and if you can, maybe toss a few bucks in, ok? I would greatly appreciate it, and be so grateful. I am already SO GRATEFUL!
Thanks, again,
Love, Maren and Tim
