THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 1, 1996 TAG: 9606010264
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 82 lines
It started with a headache and an upset stomach, not much cause for worry in a 5-year-old boy with nonstop energy.
Three days later, Edwin Ward was lying on the floor of his home in Camden, N.C., his head jerking wildly, his mouth moving in nonsense syllables.
Many hours later - after a harrowing one-hour ambulance ride to Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk - his parents learned their son had been stricken by something that usually hits elderly people. A stroke.
Now fully recovered, Edwin and his mother, Linda Ward, will appear on the CHKD telethon this weekend to help raise money for the hospital that, they say, saved Edwin's life one year ago.
Edwin had been complaining of a headache and nausea all that June weekend.
On Monday, Ward took him to the local emergency room, where doctors diagnosed a sinus infection. That evening, after a couple of doses of antibiotics, Edwin seemed better.
He chattered happily with his grandparents when they called that night, and went to bed feeling fine.
On Tuesday morning Edwin was sick again. Then, walking into the Wards' utility room, he nearly slammed into the dryer.
``Mom,'' he called. ``I can't see.''
His head and eyes began jerking to the left and he started babbling nonsense. His mother eased him to the floor and called the doctor.
Three hours after he was rushed to the emergency room at Albemarle Hospital, Edwin was loaded into an ambulance for the trip to Children's Hospital.
Throughout the ride, Ward pressed her hands to her son's unconscious body, certain that if she let go, he'd die.
Edwin's father, Jack Ward, sped along behind the ambulance.
By the time they got to the hospital, Linda remembered, Edwin's head was jerking so hard he was gasping for breath.
As the Wards watched, the pediatric emergency staff converged on their son.
One person put a tube down his throat to help him breathe. Another hooked him up to an IV. Another stripped off his clothing.
Still, someone remembered the parents. A nurse gently guided Linda and Jack Ward to the waiting room and brought them coffee. ``They had the compassion to know what the parents would be going through when their child is in that condition,'' Linda Ward said.
After a week in the hospital, Edwin was fully recovered. The only lasting reminders are a tiny scar in the back of his brain and the anti-seizure medication his mother carries in her purse.
``He's a tough kiddo,'' said Edwin's doctor, pediatric neurologist Donald Lewis.
Lewis is still puzzled as to what caused Edwin, a husky, athletic, solidly built little boy, to experience a medical problem that usually occurs in the elderly. Strokes are extremely rare in children, occurring in about one in every 200,000 children.
``The term `stroke' means to be hit by lightning, out of the blue, unprovoked,'' he said. ``We think of strokes occurring in 75-year-olds with bad hearts who smoke; not in children.''
Most likely, Lewis said, Edwin had a small tear in a blood vessel in the back of his neck that might have occurred during regular rough-and-tumble play. Usually, such clots dissolve harmlessly.
It's something Linda thinks about every time she watches Edwin play soccer or T-ball.
About the only things she won't let him do are wrestle, play football, climb trees or go off his medicine. When he stopped taking it last fall after several seizure-free months, he had another seizure and wound up back in Children's Hospital.
And the one thing she won't do is wear the red skirt she wore last June 6, during the ambulance ride. It hangs in a dry-cleaning bag in her closet.
This year on June 6, the Wards will take Edwin out to dinner at a special restaurant in Camden. They'll let him order his favorite meal of hamburger and french fries and they'll say a silent prayer of thanks.
``This kid is a gift,'' Linda said, as she watched her son playing during the school's field day. ``That only becomes more firm in my mind as time goes on.'' MEMO: [For a related story, see page B1 of THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT for this
date.] ILLUSTRATION: [Color photo appeared in the North Carolina Edition of
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT.]
KEYWORDS: STROKE CHKD INTERVIEW by CNB