Friday, June 26, 2009

Beach

Friday and it is time to leave for the beach. Mom has everything packed. Alex is back from Hill Country Center and is ready for the drive to the beach. As is usual he rides shotgun and Mom and I take turns with the driving. Sophie is not real sure what to do. This is her first road trip and takes nearly two hours to settle down.

The three hour ride went well. We even came across a train for Alex to chase just as we entered Corpus Christi. We venture off the highway and find a Mac Donald’s. Alex eats all his fries, six nuggets and quickly sucks down a 32 ounce Diet Coke. Hmmm… live is good. Mom and I pick up subway and we continue to our friend’s house. As we cross the Padre Island causeway Alex becomes very excited and continues to repeat, ‘beach, beach, beach’. We let him know it will take another 30 minutes.

The house we are in is about 3 blocks from the beach. So even though it is after 7 PM we quickly unpack and get Alex and Dad (Mom can wait till tomorrow) ready for the beach. 8 PM and time for meds but then we are off. Alex is all jazzed up and ready to hit the waves. So we pull up on the sand, pop open the door and out we go. The waves were great. The water is warm about 87 degrees and seaweed clear. We had great fun for about an hour. Then I encouraged Alex to return to the shore for the sun was down the moon was out and we need to get some sleep. After some protesting we headed back to the shore (we were about 80 yards out).

Just 10-12 feet from the shore Alex became unresponsive and had a grand mal seizure, right there in about 2 ½ feet of water. I was able to hold his head above the waves but not able to lift him out. Marycke was down the beach with Sophie but saw what was happening. As she past by a family of four, she remarked Alex was having a seizure but it was not anything we had not dealt with before. But now with Sophie on the leash and pulling at Marycke she could not really help me get him out. So the Dad from the nearby family took off his shoes and came in to help me lift him out to shore. As we lay he down he was on his back and nice Hispanic woman came over and told us to turn his on his side. I told her I knew that as Alex had been having seizures his whole life and it was the new thin I was going to do. Well she offered to call 911 and told us she was a nurse.

Wow, once again we are blessed by the proximity and kindness of told strangers. Two hundred miles from home, late on a Friday night, and nurse and strong arm gentlemen are ready to help. This is too serendipities not to have Providence play a hand in our good fortune. Anyway, we got back to the house safely, Alex is fully recovered and we spend an hour or so of quiet time f=before calling it a night.

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