Listen to the Rain

The one thing from me I had hoped she wouldn't inherit.

Monday, around the end of her nap, Laila just stared wailing out of nowhere. We gave it a few minutes to see if it would calm down, and then sashagee went in to soothe her. And, well.

If you're not familiar with night terrors (sashagee had never heard of them), they're basically waking nightmares. People having night terrors might walk around, they'll scream and cry and wail, they'll open their eyes and look around, they'll say things, but they're not actually awake and they aren't actually interacting with the world. That's what Laila did, she was shaking and screaming and looking around and nothing sashagee did would get her to respond, which obviously made sashagee start to panic. When I held Laila and tried softly calling to her I could recognize what was wrong immediately, so I pulled up the symptoms and showed them to sashagee during a period when Laila was a little calmer. It didn't really reassure her--I don't blame her, if you don't know what a night terror is, it seems like demonic possession or something--and when Laila woke up and was listless and not eating, we went to the hospital.

It all turned out okay. They did a few tests, drew some blood and took some urine (with poor Laila very unhappy about it and making the sign and saying "Done! Done!"), and the results were nothing but a bit of dehydration. After about an hour at the hospital she lost her lethargy and was her old self again, walking around, reaching for things, and the only bit of strangeness was that she didn't really want any water or food. She'd ask for apples but didn't want the juice or the applesauce, and when we offered her water she kept saying "No." But when the tests came back negative and we went home, she ate some bread with jam and drank some water and went right to sleep and woke up the next morning her happy normal self.

I really hope this doesn't happen too often. I don't know if sashagee's nerves can take it.