Since converting this blog into more of a family blog, one thing I’ve worried about is the perspective the ten or so people who read it will have of my kids. I’m especially concerned that I’m conveying an overly negative view of Finley.
Maybe that’s just on my mind thanks to my last post. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been more annoyed with him than normal over the past two weeks, thanks to the actions that contributed to that previous post.
The fact is, though, that Finley is an adorable little boy with many amazing qualities. A slew of them were on display when we went into Wednesday’s EEG.
EEG tests are when medical professionals force you to stay up until the point of exhaustion, stick a bunch of wires to your head so you look like an android, then monitor you through an infrared camera until you fall asleep. It’s supposed to tell us something about why Finley had his seizure, though I have this feeling it’ll reveal next to nothing. That, however, is a whole different issue.
On Tuesday night, I was tasked with keeping him up until midnight before handing him off to my in-laws so they could have the early morning shift. He was wired the whole night–without a drop of caffeine or sugar–playing his latest Toca game on the iPad and running around the house (not destroying anything, I should add). If either of us were at risk of falling asleep, it was me, with that midnight hour seeming later every passing year.
I didn’t get to see him again until we were running up to Children’s Hospital. He was clearly past that point of exhaustion. He kept trying to close his eyes and sneak in a quick car seat nap. We’d make loud noises to wake him back up, opposite of the screams that normally pierce the front seat.
Despite being more tired than a doped up sloth, Finley turned on the charm at the hospital. The glass elevator woke him up, and after a brief collapse on the floor (drama related, not medical), he decided to focus his attention to the two young female receptionists at the EEG desk.
“So, I take a really long time to fall asleep,” he insisted, all memory of nearly passing out in the car gone. “It’s going to take me at least ten hours.”
“Ten hours?” One of the women asked in mock surprise. “That’s a really long time.”
“Yeah,” he replied, a sly grin crossing his face. “I watched videos of the EEG, and I just don’t think I’ll fall asleep fast enough.”
He kept on like that with the receptionists while he had his audience. Then we were called back, and the study began.
Everything was interesting and new, and Finley fought sleep despite the sometimes nonsensical words and flashes of tantrum.
“We’re just going to attach some wires to your head,” the technician told him.
Finley again jumped into his charming steam of consciousness. “Yeah, I saw a video of it. You’ll stick needles in my head. It’s going to hurt.”
“No needles,” the technician countered. “The wires are attached with some sticky stuff.”
“Sometimes it’s needles,” he insisted. “I saw it in the video. And it won’t work. It’s going to take me a really long time to fall asleep. Ten hours. It always take me ten hours.”
“That is a long time,” the technician replied.
“Yeah. I really need this EEG. The medicine I’m taking is making me do crazy things. I’m chemically sensitive, so it’s a huge problem.”
“Chemically sensitive? That’s quite the vocabulary,” his technician said.
Vocabulary is one of Finley’s strength. Chemical sensitives, exuding Play Doh from machines, setting up circuits with resistors and power converters. He may lack in some areas, but he’s never lacked for words.
Finley had a minor freakouts when the technician put a pen to his head. I showed him what she was doing, though, and then he was fine.
Oh, I took one other picture. They were just for him, so I didn’t really get his face.
Once all the wires were attached, the technician put a strobe light over him at different settings. “It looks like a dying light.” Finley commented on phase number three. “That one, too,” to the next setting, “that one’s dying as well. The lights are all dying.”
He then blew on a pinwheel, which he said he did “really well.” Then finally it was time to sleep.
“It’s going to take me ten hours,” he insisted again as the technician walked out of the room. Thirty seconds later, he was as out as the lights in the room, softly snoring on hospital bed.
Afterwards, while the technician was cleaning him up, Finley said, “I think you did a few things wrong. You were supposed to use needles. What to come over to my house and we can watch the YouTube videos?”
If Finley can figure out how to listen, and maybe tone down his violence from kicking girls to just pulling their hair, we could have a problem on our hands in a few years. Between his dark lashes, his devilish grin, his quick laugh and unworried invitations back home, he could end up being quite the charmer.
Also assuming he stops saying “Banana Cow Flushes the Toilet.” Seriously. He needs to stop that. Right now. It’s driving me crazy.
I managed to dreg up a few pictures from Finley’s previous EEG almost exactly three years ago. It did not go nearly as smoothly as this trip. Hopefully, the results will be more helpful, since they saw nothing last time. But I’m not holding my breath.
