Helpless and Caught Off Guard

I was totally caught off guard yesterday. I had taken both girls to the doctor on Monday because Olivia seems to have a chronic cough and Claire was crying every time I put her to sleep which is so unlike her. He checked them out and declared them find...Olivia had a cold and Claire was fine.

Tuesday morning I notice Claire had a temp of about 101. She continued to run a fever all day. I gave her motrin and tylenol throughout the day. She didn't seem her self most of the day, but I didn't see any other symptoms. She seemed okay, ate okay and played okay most of the time, although she was unusually clingy. I kept asking her what hurt and she would tap her head. I tried to give her a lukewarm bath to cool her off before bed, but she wanted nothing to do with that. She seemed ok when I put her to bed.

When I went to check on her around 9pm, she was burning up, her temp was around 104. So I woke her up, gave her some motrin and tried to get her to drink some ice water. I then got a wet washcloth and tried rubbing her down a bit while I held her in the rocking chair.

That's when it happened. She stiffened and her eyes looked like they rolled back. She was having a seizure. While holding her, I ran for the phone and dialed 911. I put her down on the floor in the hall. She was so out of it, she appeared to be gone. I think she had a few seizures, at one point, her lips turned blue. This was so scary. I was helpless. I wanted to help her to breath, but her jaw was clenched closed because of the seizure. All I could do was put her on her side and wait for the paramedics and try to rouse her. They arrived within 5 minutes of my call.

My dilemna: Olivia was asleep in bed, I was alone, my husband just left earlier that day to drive to a town 4 hours south. I thought about calling my neighbor, but I felt I wanted my family together. I was going to have to drive while my poor baby Claire rode in the ambulance by herself.

I guess my neighbor heard and saw the ambulance because she showed up at my front door and offered to stay over with Olivia. So, I got Olivia, whom I had woken up and already put in the car and handed her over.

I drove to the hospital while Claire was whisked away in the ambulance. I worried about her the entire way, I wanted so much to be with her to make sure she was okay.

When we got there, one of the paramedics was carrying her in and she seemed better...more aware...

They sent us to room 13. There were stars, clouds, and moons painted around the room. The paramedic had me sit down and finally handed Claire over to me. She was still so warm. We spent about 5 hours in the ER and left about 3am Wednesday morning. During our time, we met a Physician's Assistant who checked on Claire. The nurses took her vitals. They put in a catheter to get a urine sample and put in an IV which was so hard, but they did such a great job. They got a blood sample and left the IV in, just in case they might need to administer medicine or fluids.

We waited and waited. It was busy in the ER. The tests came back fine except it showed she might be getting an infection so they gave her a shot of antibiotics. They would have given it in her IV, but unfortunately, she had pulled it out at some point.

She had had febrile seizures which I've actually had experience with. Olivia had the exact same thing at about the same age. I remember being so scared.

Ever since then, I've been diligent about keeping fevers down so that's why I was caught so off guard. And when Claire had hers, her lips turned blue...that didn't happen with Olivia. With these type of seizures, they don't suffer any type of adverse affects to their brain or anything. It's just the body's way of reacting to rapidly increasing fever. It's the body's way of cooling off the body somehow. But still, I worry. I always worry it's my fault. I didn't do enough to keep her fever down. Maybe I caused her seizure when I woke her.

She still has a fever of about 100, I will be taking her in the morning since her doctor doesn't work this afternoon.