Once she decided she was ready, it didnt take long for her to arrive. Evelyn Marie Laplante was born at 11:23am, on a beautiful Spring morning, in the comfort of our own bedroom, surrounded by her loving family and amazing midwives. She was a beautiful baby, a respectable 7lbs1ounce, a full 21inches of arms and legs. She instantly became my proudest accomplishment, and the love of all of our lives. I can still see the proud grins not only Paul's face, but on Isabelle's as she was finally able to declare herself a "Big Sister". For the first six months of her life, I readjusted, and enjoyed watching not only her grow, but how our family grew together. From the moment she arrived it seemed as though this was how it was supposed to be, and all was perfect.
Fast forward 6 1/2 months...
On October 28th, Paul called me into the bathroom while he was giving Evie her bath. He asked me if I had noticed her eye moving. As I looked closer, I saw that her left eye seemed to be shaking. Though we had no explanation for it, we knew it wasnt a "normal" behaviour. I then did what NOBODY should do; I Googled. What I came up with was a plethora of possible medical issues, none of them very promising. I had sufficiently scared myself, and as I tend to worry and panic, I quickly closed my laptop and decided to call Telehealth. 10 minutes of Q&A with an RN and I was advised to take Evie to the Doctor in the morning. As any parent knows, when you fear something is not right, it makes for a long and difficult night.
As Paul headed off to work, I took Isabelle to school, and then headed to the clinic with Evie. Thedoctor checked her out thoroughly and then left for quite sometime. When he finally returned, he explained the movement of her eyesas "nystagmus", but did not why it was happening,and was not comfortable making a diagnosis without further testing. He handed me a referral and asked if we were able to head to the ER at SickKids. We went immediately, arriving at 10am thatmorning. Though I knew something was wrong, I had no idea what the next 17 hours had in store for us.
My Mom came with me and I had called Paul at work and told him to meet methere as soon as possible. We were admitted into theER and given a room. Various doctors and nurses would come in and out,each time checking Evelyn's vitals and asking, "What have you beentold?". This became terribly frustrating as we quickly learned thatwe weren't being told anything. In the back of our heads, we totally understood that theycouldn't speak out of turn, they needed to have all the facts first, but as aparent, it's just a difficult place to be.
At around 10pm Evie was taken for her first MRI. It was the first "break" Paul and I had since arriving 12 hours earlier. Despite thelong day, and the MRI, we still didn't fully grasp the seriousness of what wasgoing on. We knew to be worried, but we just didn't know what to think,we were just naive. We came back to the ER, and shortlyafter a new doctor arrived to speak to us. She confused me greatly as shetold me another team of doctors would be down to speak to us soon, but wantedus to know they had found "something". She then said it was okto be angry/upset/mad at her. I was upset, and I believe I cried at first, but I didn't know what she meant, what had they found?
As we again waited, I held my baby in my arms, and we all slept. At 3am, the sliding door to our room opened, and adoctor came in. He explained the "something" was a "growth" on Evie's brain, and asked if we had ever heard of Neurofibromytosis. We shook our heads no, and were then admitted and moved to an In Patient room on the 8th floor.
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