Monday, April 23, 2007
1st Ambulance Ride
Whew! Its been a while. After my big 3-0, we had some family in town, then went out of town (to Florida!) for a week, then came back and before we could really get settled, had more family come visit, then Andrew ended up with an ear infection and a seizure! SCARY!!Here's the story: I took him to the doctor last Thursday morning for a fever and cold-like symptoms. He promptly looked in his ears and said "infection!" His fever was 102.3 at the office, so they gave him Motrin and a prescription for antibiotics and sent us home with instructions to alternate Tylenol and Motrin every 3 hours to keep the fever under control. That was at 10:30 am. We went home, Andrew took a little nap, ate some lunch, then all of us (me, Chris, Andrew, MIL, FIL, neice & nephew) went to the local park for a walk. At 1:30 pm I gave Andrew some Tylenol. We got home @ 3 pm and he went down for a nap. At 4:30 pm I suddenly thought I should go check on him and give him Motrin. When I got to his door, I could hear the crib hitting the wall. I smiled, thinking he was playing, as he often does. When I opened the door, however, I saw that he was NOT playing. He was face-down and shaking violently...so violently, the crib was hitting the wall (which is what I'd heard). I screamed for Chris to call 911, and I picked him up and ran into our bedroom. We have a large open area where I figured I could lie him down and not worry about him banging his head or hitting anything. He had this horrible blank stare...it was SO SCARY. I just kept talking to him, rubbing his back and singing. It lasted maybe 2-3 minutes, but it seemed like HOURS. Chris kept saying, "Don't die, baby." I was trying to stay calm but panicking on the inside, MIL was praying, FIL was trying to keep my nephew entertained (my niece was napping) and out of the room.
When the EMT's got there, they realized him temp had gone up to 103.5 and after we got him into the ambulance, they gave him Tylenol to try to get his fever down. Upon arrival to the hospital, his temp was 103.7, so they gave him Motrin. He screamed and cried from the moment we got in the ambulance until his fever finally broke at @ 8 pm. Then he was playing, laughing, and flirting with the nurses like nothing had happened. (They let us leave when it got down to 99.)
It was a febrile seizure. I'd read so much about these seizures and knew it could happen, but nothing can compare to actually seeing this happen. It was horrible, and so very scary. He's been absolutely fine ever since, and we are so grateful. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to my baby boy.
| posted by Anna at 4:07 PM
