2 1/2 MINUTES

“Mom, Jake’s acting stupid.”  

“What do you mean?  Are you guys fighting again?” 

“He’s just acting stupid.” 

I move from the kitchen to the living room a bit exasperated that I must once again intercede.  It’s been a long day of bickering and unspent energy.  Jake is lying on his back on the floor, his head turned to the side. 

“Jake, what’s going on, you’re bothering your brother.” 

There’s no response and I notice a small twitch in the left side of his mouth. 

“Jake, get up now.  Quit messing around.”  His eyes are open but still no response.   I gently kick him with my toe. 

“Jake, you’re scaring me.  You get up right this minute.” I say in my best no nonsense Mom voice.

I grab his shoulders and shake him.  

“Jake, talk to me!!”

I scream and within seconds my husband, Jon, has run in from the back of the house.  He hugs Jake toward him pulling him into his lap.  

“I’ll call 911.  Zach go next door and get Chris.”

Chris is our hippie neighbor and for some reason I believe the more adults we have in the house the better this will turn out. 

“I’m at 146 Madison Avenue and my son is unresponsive.  Yes, yes, he’s breathing, his eyes are open, he’s just not responding to us. Please send someone, help us!”  

Everything starts to move in slow motion.  The phone still clutched in my hand I see Chris come in through the front door.   I turn toward Jon and Jake on the couch seeing a tragedy unfold with the disjointed feeling of someone watching a movie.  Jon has his entire body bent over Jake as if protecting him from falling debris.  He is whispering in Jake’s ear trying to get him to respond.  Chris kneels beside the two of them and starts to pray.  Zach is in the corner hugging his younger brother, Sam, both of them watching in horror.  I think I should comfort them but my mind can’t make that leap.  The operator continues to insist I stay on the phone.  I finally hear the sirens and moments later four paramedics have run into the house.  I snap out of my dreamlike trance and drop the phone.  At that very moment Jake starts to move and sits up in Jon’s lap.  

“What’s happening?” he whispers.  

He looks at all of the people gathered around him and then clings to Jon.   Jon hugs Jake to him and we all cry with relief.  Chris holds me, I hold Jon, Jon holds Jake.  Zach and Sam are frozen together in the corner but still I can’t go to them.  The paramedics start to ask questions.  I have difficulty finding my voice.  I am still in my own personal horror movie.  

“How long did this last?,”  they ask.  

“Twenty minutes, maybe a half hour.” 

“How long did you wait to call us?”

“I called you right away.  You took so long!” 

“Ma’am we got here in 2 1/2 minutes.”  

Jake had a seizure disorder when he was just 6 years old.  After all of the tests they called it epilepsy or “seizures of unknown origin” and told me he would have epilepsy until adolescence when most children grow out of it.  They put him on Tegretol, a heavy duty drug that required he have blood tests monthly to be certain he wasn’t experiencing the more serious side effects of the drug which included liver dysfunction and depression of the child’s bone marrow which can affect his ability to fight infection.  His seizures continued and the neurologist who we saw kept increasing his dosage.  As the dosage increased Jake turned into a little zombie, just a shadow of the mischievous, sparkly little boy he had been just a couple of weeks before.  He was still having three seizures a week.  I finally decided to seek alternative treatments.  That’s when I discovered Dr. Ifeoma Ikenzie, a Pediatrician who also used homeopathy in her practice.  I took Jake in and she spent an hour and a half interviewing both Jake and me.  This as opposed to the 15 minute appointment we had with the neurologist.  We left Dr. Ikenzie’s office with a small brown envelope containing tiny round pills - the homeopathic treatment she was recommending.  After our appointment with Dr. Ikenzie Jake never had another seizure. We then weaned him off of the Tegretol and he continued to take the homeopathic remedy for another six months after which we weaned him off of that.  Within a year from his first seizure he was cured.  

When I called my Pediatrician to inform him that we were taking Jake off of the Tegretol and using the homeopathic remedy he said “I think what you are doing is dangerous.”  I told him I did not call to get his opinion, just to let him know that Jake was no longer on the Tegretol and to please make changes on his record accordingly.  He said “Fine” and hung up.  

Shortly after all of this happened to us I found out that a friend’s four year old was having grand mal seizures.  She was on three different seizure medications - enough for a large adult.  Her blood levels were so off she was slowly dying from the very medications that were supposed to be treating her.  I shared our experience with her and she immediately went to Dr. Ikenzie.  Dr. Ikenzie was able to get this little four year old off all of her seizure medications and my friend had her daughter back.  

When she called her daughter’s neurologist to tell him they had switched to treating her homeopathically, she had been weaned off of her meds and was no longer having seizures his response was  “Do you believe in astrology too?”

WTF??!!