Night Terrors

My son gets up to go to work about 4am.  Imagine my surprise when at just after 12am, 2 nights ago, I get an IM on the computer for me to call him!  WTH??  So I call him on his house fone and he's close to hysterical (well, as hysterical as he gets) telling me that my granddaughter, Katyra, is having god-awful nightmares.  Screaming for mommy and daddy and when either of them picks her up, she looks at them and starts screaming again for mommy and daddy.  When I called, she calmed right down.  My son was weirded out by that because up to that point, she'd been going nuclear.  When I called, she stopped.  That kinda weirded ME out but I was glad of it.  I talked to her a little bit on the phone, told her I loved her and that I was glad that I could talk to her and then got back with my son.

They called Philly the next day (she's the one with bilateral retinoblastoma - eye cancer that is currently in remission) to find out what they thought and to let them know so it was in her file, just in case it was a symptom of a brain tumor.  We both thought that but neither of us spoke it out loud that night.  Was just too scary to contemplate.  They said it was probably night terrors (I saw a movie about a guy that had them and I've seen bits and pieces of what they are like but have never experienced it myself (that I remember), nor did my kids so this was new to both of us) and since they had given her children's nyquil to try to help her sleep because she's catching a cold, the doctor's office suggested they stop the nyquil because that could be aggravating the dreams.  My son told me in an IM this morning when I logged on (it was waiting for me as he had sent it just before 4am) that she had slept restlessly but no night terrors.  But since she's catching a cold, she didn't sleep very well, kept moaning and thrashing around, and somehow, at some point in the night, stuck herself in the ear.  He didn't say with what....I'm guessing her finger.  Regardless, he didn't get much rest last night either and ended up getting up an hour before he normally does.

Now I'm worried about HIM because he hasn't had a full night's sleep since Friday night - as of the night before, he'd only had about 6 hours of sleep.  He works 4 12s so I worry about him driving to and from work.  Hopefully, tonite he'll sleep good and Katyra will sleep good and they can get past this.