For the first second I thought he was joking, repeating the world and then seizing up like he couldn't say another thing, the next I realised he was really seizing and he would fall of the hopelessly small stool he was perched on, and most of all I couldn't catch him alone. I shouted the Serbian word for help and then, as I watched, my beloved husband crease onto the floor and after moments where I could bearably see him breath he started to have a grand mal seizure. Everyone was speaking but I couldn't hear what they were saying, a man was pouring water over his neck. “does anyone speak English, I don't understand!” Amazingly enough the very same man did, and then another and then another girl, a heaven sent angel, who was returning from work and stayed by my side until the ambulance arrived - even the first paramedic I spoke to heard my explanation in English.
The wait for the ambulance seemed like an eternity, I kept having to tell people to speak Serbian to Zeljko, kept shaking his shoulder trying to make him keep his eyes open, he kept looking at his scraped hand the confusion clear in his face. He remembers nothing of those heart stopping 15 odd minutes as we waited for the ambulance, nothing of the confusion, he just remembers waking up in an ambulance and seeing me outside, a big childish grin on my face as I saw he registered it was me, the next thing he was in hospital. His first sentence as he was wheeled in came with a face splitting smile, “what did I do?”
I rang a friend in the ambulance and shortly after his cat scan the cavalry arrived, his mum crying enough for all five of us. I had somehow got through the ordeal almost alone, for when they arrived there was little more than monitoring and a couple extra questions to confirm the slightly hazy childhood medical history I had given, then he was discharged. Somehow I had managed to do what was needed, remembered the right bits of information, been quizzed by the doctors repeatedly but sufficiently and booked him into the hospital. I sat outside that cubical for a second and realised that my nightmare had happened and we had survived it.
The next day we returned to the hospital maze for an EEG which told us nothing, the doctors were still undecided weather is was a freak event or something more serious, the only way to confirm is if we go through the experience again. The doctor we were sent to was great, he really cared and really wanted to make sure he had asked everything, but the unresolved question of 'why' hung heavily in the room and the discomfort showed plain on his face.
I don't think I want to tell this story again, I don't want to bring back the image of my husbands contorted face or the fear it conveys. I've seen grand mal seizures before, a fact I’m oddly thankful for now, but even as the heaven sent girl gently reminded me that it happening out in the open where help was at hand was probably a blessing, I prayed urgently that it was a blessing I may never need to receive again.