A difficult week

It has been a difficult week. After battling cancer for some time, my half sister Christine died peacefully yesterday. I didn't know her as well as I do my other siblings - so in a way she seemed more distantly related... but none-the-less, I have good memories of times passed. In particular, the time I drove to Adelaide to stay with her, riding my bike with her around the motor racing course, watching her ballroom dancing, and hearing the seemingly endless tales of her travels all over the place. I will be forever envious of her completing a number of lengthy bike rides around Australia... and will miss her visits to Sydney. Much could be said, but for this forum, it is sufficient to say that we are very sad to lose her, and sad for Dad and Mum, who were closer to her than us all... She was a Christian, and the Bible assures us that we can have confidence that she is in heaven, where she has a new body, one free of illness, and life everlasting.

The other event that made the week unpleasent was Bethany's scare... On Thursday night, when Amy was at work, Beth had a seizure. I felt helpless, as she didn't have a fever! She recovered after about 30secs and I was able to call the ambo's and friends to come look after J & T. The ambo's arrived and told me that it was probably a febrile convulsion due to her chest infection. On arrival at Wagga Base Hostpital A & E, we were seen by 4 doctors no less, all coming to the conclusion that she must have epilepsy or worse. There was talk of lumbar punctures, CT scans, MRI scans, EEG readings, as well as numerous pathology tests. She had a second seizure in A & E while sitting on Amy's lap, and they timed it and took her temp during the course of it. That was at about 8pm. At about 1:30am she was admitted to the childrens ward having been canulated in case of further seizures. None of us slept well.

It's now Sunday, and Bethany seems almost back to normal. It turns out that she had rotoviral encephalitis, which only occurs in about 2% of 1-2yr olds who get rotovirus (a major cause of gastro in kids). And only about 4% of those kids have these afebrile convulsions. It baffled everyone for a while, even the paediatrician, and we are very grateful to the paediatric fellow (not fella, but fellow), for whom the case triggered a memory of a case she'd once seen - and after a trip to the library and some time on the internet had an answer that fit Bethany's case. So now we monitor Beth closely, and by all accounts, she should be fine with no lasting affects.

So that has been our week, not even a week really... and there is much to thank God for. Chris has gone home, where there is no sickness, and Bethany is home, healthy, happy, and loved.