Trading a day on the run for a Day in the hospital…(bad deal for us)!

Baby Emma recieves CAT Scan

I didn’t blog last night or the night before because I was busy in the emergency center in New Jersey. Instead of reliving all the details, I’ll just copy a letter my wife sent out to our friends….

Hello friends,
As many of you already know baby Proffitt had a series of concerning seizures yesterday. Eric had just finished running his first 200 miles and we were sleeping in New Jersey.  After being surrounded by state police, accused of escaping from the state penitentiary and threatened to be impounded and jailed just because he was running in chains down the road in Philadelphia, we have already had our fair share of scares and "bumps" in the road. This proved to be yet another frustrating but serious distraction.

After the third seizure I told Eric to book us emergency flights home to Canada where I knew that all medical would be covered. As the night progressed the more I thought about leaving in the morning the worse I felt.   I didn’t feel good abandoning Eric before the big rally in NYC and the ending of the US portion of the run. I also wasn’t confident that baby would make it safely on such a long flight. I opted to bring her into the New Jersey ER center where we got to bed after numerous tests at 4:30am.

Eric had to cancel his run for the day and stay with the other 4 girls as I took the baby from test to test. After a long night and day, blood tests, countless nurses,  doctors, neorologists, & pediatricians as well as a CAT scan and EEG test the doc told us they couldn’t find any indication of why she was having the seizures. He felt confident that it was safe to complete the run with Eric and fly home in four days where she will have an MRI and some additional testing while Eric continues onto London alone.

The Proffitt girls chill out their crib

As I sat there watching the entourage of doctors coming in and out testing baby this way and that, ensuring her comfort and safety, and willingly offering every option of recovery, health,pain medication etc.. I was struck by the irony of the situation.

Here we are in 2009 living in a  civilized, & educated country. We have dedicated everything that we have financially, emotionally and physically in an attempt to awaken the world to an awareness of the incomprehensible suffering of hundreds of thousands of children in Canada and America who are experiencing emergencies on a scale much grander than my young daughter, and we are met with silence and denial.  But this one child, whose worth is equal to any other, has unknowingly solicited the care and protection of a dozen trained medical professionals. What if we could provide that for every suffering child? What if we, like elephants and rhinos would circle together and in strength and unity protect our young. Imagine the power we could have to provide freedom to every generation of children.

May God give us the strength to be the change we wish to see in the world.

Rebecca