Seeing Double

This post is part of a year-long series ... Through this series of posts I plan to share our family's experiences in the last year of our 17-year-old daughter's life on earth, which spanned from February of 2008 to February of 2009. Many of you who read this blog followed our journey through the emails I wrote over the course of that year. My desire is to process through the events of that year from the perspective that a decade of time has brought ... for myself, really. But if you'd like to follow along, you're welcome to join me.

February 18, 2008

Hannah had remained headache-y through the weekend, but the morning nausea had subsided.  She was back in school, and things seemed to be normalizing somewhat with her.   My main concern now was for our younger daughter, Bethany.  She had been diagnosed with pneumonia a few days before Hannah's headaches started, and she just didn't seem to be improving.  She was scheduled to return to the doctor the next day for some more tests.

At that time, I was working part-time as a speech-language pathologist for a local school district, and I also saw a few students privately.  After finishing up with one of my private students, I checked my phone and saw that I had missed a call from Hannah's high school.  The voice mail was from the school secretary, who told me that Hannah wasn't feeling well, and that I needed to call the office.  My heart sank as I dialed ... I had been so hopeful that she was getting better!

Our girls attended a very small school district, where their dad was the high school principal.  When I called the office, it only took a few minutes for them to get Hannah to the phone.  She told me that her head was hurting and she was "seeing double."  The alarm bells started going off in my head, and I told her to sit tight ... I'd be there in a few minutes, and we'd go straight to the doctor's office.  She assured me, though, that she was already feeling better ... everything was fine now ... it wasn't a big deal ... and she wanted to stay at school.  I reluctantly agreed and hung up the phone.

I was hosting a baby shower for some teachers after school that day, so I spent the rest of that afternoon running around town doing errands and preparing for that event.  As people began to arrive at the shower, I pasted on a smile and went through the motions required of me ... all the while counting the minutes until it ended and I could go home and see how Hannah was doing.  The feeling of foreboding I had while standing in the pharmacy section of Walmart was back, and it was so, so heavy.

The baby shower finally came to an end, the clean-up was completed, and I headed home.  I was so anxious to talk with Hannah and see what had really been going on at school today.   As she shared with me the issues she'd had with double vision at school, I noticed that she looked a little "off".  As we continued to talk, I realized what was bothering me about her appearance ... the pupils of her eyes were extremely dilated.

The realization took my breath away.  Not wanting to alarm her, I finished our conversation without saying anything about her eyes, then pulled my husband Brad aside and asked him if he saw it too.  He spoke with her for a few minutes and confirmed what I had seen.  We decided that we would call the doctor first thing in the morning and see if we could get her in at the same time we brought Bethany in. 

I felt a little better that we were finally doing something ... but sleep did not come easily that night.