It was our 8th cruise. We had just landed in Vancouver and were in a taxi on the way to the hotel – me, my daughter Kennedy, and her nurse. She was positioned behind us in the accessible part of the vehicle. (You would be shocked at how many accessible taxis there are in Canada!! It’s quite impressive.)
I heard a funny noise and turned around. My daughter’s eyes had rolled back into her head and she was not responding to me. I quickly realized that she was having a seizure. She had never had a seizure before, so it was terrifying.
I asked the taxi driver to take us to the nearest hospital. He said it was better that he pull over and call 911 – who knew it was also 911 in Canada!?
The taxi driver pulled over, I called 911 and gave the dispatcher our location, and then called my husband (who was in another taxi with our son and my mom) to let him know what was going on.
By the time the paramedics got to us, Kennedy had stopped seizing. She was disoriented but her oxygen and heartrate were normalizing. They loaded her into the ambulance and headed to the children’s hospital, which happened to be only a short distance away. I had the taxi driver take the nurse and luggage in the taxi and meet us at the hospital and I rode in the ambulance.
We arrived at the hospital and were put in a waiting area with the paramedics. I knew my daughter was fine when she started flirting with the young male paramedic. She was 9 at the time. (Insert eye roll here.) She was thrilled to learn that by Canadian law, the paramedics were not allowed to leave their patient until the hospital actually took over care, which took some time. All the more time to flirt, my dear.
The neurologist on call happened to be an epileptologist!! They did some testing and nothing came back out of the ordinary. (Clinical seizures don’t show on testing unless they are actively happening.) The doctor was not particularly concerned.
We called our home neurologist and gave her the low-down: we were scheduled to leave on a 7-day Alaskan Cruise the next day and here we were in a Children’s Hospital in Canada. She wanted to start Kennedy on a maintenance seizure medication but also insisted we have a rescue medication called Diazepam on-hand if we were going to take the cruise. She was not allowed to prescribe any of it, though, because she was not licensed to practice medicine in Canada.
We quickly learned that Diazepam was not prescribed on an out-patient basis in Canada, so we would not be able to get that from the hospital or any local pharmacy. While the doctor at the hospital was willing to prescribe the maintenance medication, we were also having trouble finding that. They discharged us with a minimal supply of the maintenance medication, but even the hospital was low on stock as it was not widely prescribed in Canada.
We were discharged and made our way to the hotel. All eyes were on me. My husband, daughter, 12-year-old son, husband, nurse, and mom all awaited my decision about whether this cruise was actually going to happen. As I sat in that hotel room Sunday evening, I had no idea if we would be getting on that ship the next day. I knew how disappointed everyone would be if I decided we were not going to travel, but this was WAY outside my comfort zone.
When I woke up the next morning, I started making calls. Through a series of connections and synchronicities I can’t explain – including one made with a random person at breakfast — I was able to find the maintenance medicine at a nearby pharmacy, but I was not about get on that ship without the rescue medicine. I knew the ship had to be boarded by 1:00 p.m.
It occurred to me to call the division at Disney Cruise Line that assists people with disabilities and medical needs. They knew me by voice. This was our 5th Disney Cruise and they knew all about Kennedy. They put me in contact with the doctors onboard the cruise ship AND THEY HAD THE RESCUE MEDICINE on the ship! They assured me they would take us directly to the medical office once onboard and the doctor on the ship could both prescribe and provide the rescue medicine.
There was a part of me that was terrified to proceed with this cruise not knowing if my daughter would have another seizure. This was unfamiliar territory. And yet, this series of synchronicities had lined up to provide every resource we needed to ensure my daughter’s safety (to the extent we had any power in that, anyway). I decided that there was no way the Universe would have provided everything we needed if we really were meant to play it safe.
So, we went on the cruise, and we had an amazing time.
Your comfort zone is safe, but there’s no adventure there. And with a little faith, and a lot of pixie dust, your dreams are within reach.
