My Memories from Day 1(May 6, 2010)

This is my perspective on what all has happened up until now. May 6, 2010 Ferrell came in, from golfing until dark, about 9:00 p.m. The girls and I were finishing up Survivor when he got there. Then we started a CSI: NY episode. It had been on for about 3 minutes or less when Ferrell stuck his arms straight up and then clenched them to his chest. Miranda and Dayna were sitting on our couch at the foot of our bed and Miranda said, "Stop Dad! That's not funny!" He didn't stop so I reached over and shook him and said, "Ferrell, stop you are scaring the girls." When I touched him I knew something was bad wrong. At this point, Miranda says I went from sewing her Jr./Sr. Banquet dress with my back to Ferrell to the other side of our king size bed in one movement. I have no memory of that. I only remember telling him to breathe because he wasn't breathing. I was screaming at him to breathe because I couldn't live without him. I remember thinking he had grabbed his chest so he must be having a heart attack. In a very few seconds, Miranda was on the phone with 911 screaming that her Dad was dying and we needed help. The 911 operator told her to calm down and give them the address. She finally quit screaming long enough to give them our address twice. In the meantime, Dayna and I were both doing CPR on Ferrell. I sent Dayna to kitchen for Dayna to get a spoon to get Ferrell's mouth open so he could breathe. She came back and pried his mouth open(which resulted in a cut gum and two chipped teeth). We were still doing CPR(Ferrell told me later you should always check for a pulse. Oh well! I was going by 25 year old CPR lessons.) Miranda ran back to my Mom's room and turned her light on and screamed that she needed to pray for Daddy because he was dying. Paul said, "Turn that light out!" While Dayna and I were doing CPR Ferrell began making a noise like a horse whinnying trying to breathe. At some point, it registered with me that he was seizing because he was also frothing. I still did CPR but got him turned about half way over. Three minutes into this, the first people arrived which were 2 Crestview city police officers. They immediately turned him completely on his side and he started snoring instantly. Then we had paramedics from the city and the county in our room. I had one moment that lasted about 2-3 seconds where I started to freak out but I stopped it immediately as soon as it started. We ended up with about ten or twelve cars/trucks in our yard. I later found out that they didn't know if we were city or county. They got Ferrell in the ambulance where Ferrell started to come back to himself in route to Crestview Hospital. He recognized Sissy Parrish and asked what she was doing in his bedroom. Oh yeah, on the way out of the bedroom, they had to restrain Ferrell because he was fighting so bad. He was grabbing the door faces and anything he could get his hands on. He said that when he came to in the ambulance he felt like a mummy because they had him so taped down. He wouldn't believe Sissy that he had, had a seizure so I had to get up in the ambulance and talk to him. He believed me but still was in the post dictal stage and was very fuzzy. He remembered everything up until the moment the seizure started and then remembers everything about 30-45 minutes afterwards. We stayed in the hospital overnight that time to watch him. They were just going to send him home an hour or so after the seizure. It didn't do us any good to stay the night though because they did absolutely nothing for him except give him some Ativan in the ER. Things went along fairly smoothly after this. Miranda, Dayna, and I stayed home from work and school on Friday the 7th. Austin was out with friends the night it happened so he missed it all except coming to the hospital after Ferrell was there. Miranda and I stayed with Ferrell until his Mom came and relieved us for a few hours to get some sleep. Ferrell, the girls and I all went back to work/school on Monday. Ferrell didn't do anything at work that day but fill out paperwork for the Family Medical Leave Act and sit around. The rest of us had as normal a day as possible. Ferrell went to see Dr. Pan Tuesday and was told it could have just been a freak accident and might never reoccur. No medication was prescribed but an EEG and MRI were scheduled for Thursday. Ferrell was told Tuesday night not to come back to work until he was cleared by his doctor(which in his line of work is understandable). I worked on Tuesday and was off on Thursday to take Ferrell to his appointments. I went to work on Friday. During all this time, Ferrell was going golfing etc. but not driving because doctor said he couldn't. He was really sore for about two days after seizure though. I will write about the next episode tomorrow.