The Scariest Day

Saturdays Are For The Flu?

So I know this is a little out of the norm for me to write about my daughter but I feel like this is something that needs to be talked about. A couple of weeks ago I had the most terrifying experience of my life. I'm a new mommy and my little is about 20 months old. A couple of weeks ago I came down with a pretty bad flu and I did my best to stay away from her but as you now that is nearly impossible. Needless to say she came down with the same thing. It was a Saturday night when it started and I went through my usual routine of checking her temperature and attempting to clear her nose with the aspirator.  She had a very low grade fever but as a precaution I gave her some Motrin and laid in bed with her while she tried to fall asleep through her stuffy nose. She fell asleep finally around 2 AM and I gently placed her in her crib and went to sleep. The next morning was just like any other morning with a sick baby...until it wasn't.

Sundays Are Not Always Fun Days

She woke up around 9:00 that morning which was really late for her but seemed ok since she had such a hard time falling asleep the night before. I had woken up with her at about 6:00 and she was half asleep crying so I had given her her dose of Motrin. I knew it was going to be time for more at about 10:00 AM so I was keeping an eye on the clock while going about my morning. She played a little bit and I cleaned out her nose again (she was not happy about that). I held her in my arms to calm her down and she started to drift off. At about 10:00 AM I was debating whether or not I should wake her up for her Motrin but her dad and I decided it would be better to let her get some rest. She slept in my arms on the couch until about 10:30 when she woke up, "Oh Good!" I thought, "I can give her the Motrin now." She had been fighting me all morning to take her Hyland's Cold and Cough so her dad had the great idea to just mix her Motrin in with her Pedialite. I gave her the bottle and she snuggled up with her dad and started to drink. I watched as she nearly finished and felt relaxed at that point to start getting ready to head to the grocery store. I was in the restroom when her dad yelled from the living room, "hey I think she's going to throw up". This was pretty typical for her as she tends to choke a bit on the post nasal drip and gags until she vomits. "Bring her in here!" I yelled. I figured if she was going to have an accident it would be better to have it in the restroom. Her dad carried her in and my heart sank.

And Then It Wasn't 

If you've read my blogs you know that I work primarily with adults with disabilities. A lot of those disabilities are very likely to bring on some medical issues and therefor I have a lot of special training that allows me to spot certain things right away. When her dad carried her in she was in the typical position with her bottom on his hip sitting straight up. Only something was wrong...really wrong. As I looked at her I realized that she was staring at the ceiling; only she wasn't looking at anything, and as her dad carried her into the room her gaze did not change at all. "What is she looking at!" I asked in a panic..."what the fuck is wrong?" At this point her dad went into rescue mode. I freaked and started yelling for him to bring her into the bedroom. Her lips were turning blue. "We need to do CPR!" I was screaming it felt like. I couldn't breath. Her dad laid her down and I tried to assess the situation. She appeared to be breathing again but she wasn't responding to anything. Her eyes were open but she wasn't there. Her dad started lightly slapping her face trying to get her to respond...nothing. "She got really hot while I was carrying her." Her dad was scared but calm. He was in fight mode. I reached across the dresser to grab the thermometer when I saw her arm and leg start to twitch. She was seizing. I had seen it a thousand times with clients. The glazed stare, the awkward jerks...my daughter was having a seizure. 

I Have To Call 911

I'm a worrier. Like a professional worrier. I always think the worst and I always overreact. Her dad is the calm one...the sane one. "I'm going to call 911!" I was shaking, I couldn't breath, I was having trouble seeing. My phone was in the living room. I had to get there. I think I ran but I'm not sure to be honest; it felt like I flew. My phone was plugged in. I ripped it off the wall and tried to dial through my blurred vision, "911 what's your emergency?" I couldn't breathe, "I...need...help" I was hyperventilating trying to speak, trying to talk so she could understand. I had called 911 for this exact thing a thousand times. I knew I needed to try to talk to her and not panic. "What's your address Hun? Where are you?" She could hear my desperation without me saying a word and skipped the formalities of making sure this wasn't a prank. I rattled off my address through heavy breathing. I was talking so fast. I was pacing around the room trying to will the ambulance to my living room. "OK Hun the ambulance is on the way...I need you to understand that your talking to me now is not going to slow that ambulance down so please tell me what's going on." She was calm, she was strong, I needed her to walk me through this because my training wasn't kicking in like it normally did. I was still breathing extremely heavy, "My daughter...she's 20 months...stopped breathing...she's having a seizure... I need you...to tell me what to do!" I ran back into the room. It was at that moment that I thought I would walk in and she would be ok and I would feel silly. I would tell the operator that I was sorry, that she was alright and I was overreacting again. She would be ok and I would be the worrier and her dad would be the sane one. But she wasn't ok....the world wasn't ok. 

Fish Out Of Water

I ran back into the room and there was my baby laying on her stomach on the bed...head to the side...arms limp at her sides...vomit around her face...gasping for air like a fish out of water. Her dad was desperately trying to make sure she didn't choke by keeping her head to the side. He was calm. He was loving. He was patting her back and being her dad. I start crying, "oh god...she threw up everywhere...she's barely breathing...I need help now!" My world was upside down. My daughter was dying. She was dying in our bed. "OK Hun what is she doing now? Is she breathing?" The 911 operator was a rock star. She was keeping me on task. Check her. Assess. Calm down. It was all coming back now. "She's breathing but she's having a hard time...she's not responding." "OK Hun breathing is good, I want you to count her breaths with me now ok. Every time you hear that baby breath I want you to say 'now,' got it?" I sat her up and started to listen. She gasped, "now................now.........now..........................now....now....that's not normal what's wrong with my baby?" I was panicking again. Her dad started taking off her pajamas...smart....she has a fever...bring it down...he's so on top of this. I felt calmer knowing he was there and I wasn't alone. I don't think I could have done it alone. "Ma'am? Does she have a heart condition?" "No." "Epilepsy?" "No." My daughter was healthy. As her dad would always say when I would freak out, she's fine. "She's healthy! Normal birth, no complications, no problems....I don't know what's wrong!" We heard sirens. The ambulance was here. Her dad scooped her up and ran to the living room toward the front door. We were going to meet them where they were. I ran after them, "they're here! I hear them!" "OK Hun I need you to stay on the..." "Oh my god what's happening?!" "Ma'am? what's going on Hun? Stay with me!" I was sobbing and screaming as I watched my daughter barely conscious start projectile vomiting all over her dad and the living room. "She's throwing up! It's bad...It's everywhere." Her dad looked at me with desperation, "where are they?" he pleaded with me looking for all the same answers I was. Only he didn't have the life line of the phone operator like I did. "Hun? I need you to lay her down on her side ok? We don't want her to choke." I told her dad and he got down on the floor with her. Every time he tried to lay her down she would go stiff and stand up straight. She was walking around the living room in a haze...vomiting...running into the walls. we couldn't get her to lay down...she didn't know what was going on.

Has This Ever Happened Before?

My head was spinning. Where are they? I heard them? They should be hear. "Ma'am? what's going on? Are you still with me?" My daughter was in her diaper plopped in the middle of the floor staring into space. There was vomit everywhere and I couldn't hear anything. It was like being under water. Everything was muffled. Too much adrenaline. Get it together. Focus damnit. "I'm here, she's sitting up. I hear them they're coming" it was then that the footsteps started. I could hear them coming, everything was going to be ok now. "Ma'am if you have any pets I nee you to lock them up so they don't hurt the resposnders ok? Ma'am? I want you to know that this can happen in babies. It might be nothing. Please know that." I thanked her and hung up. I wish I had thanked her more. I wish I knew who she was so I could send her flowers. I wish I knew her name. The paramedics got to work. They asked for her car seat to put her in the ambulance. They reminded me that it was ok for me to put shoes on before I walked to the ambulance in the rain in my bare feet. They held my daughter int heir arms like she was their own. They told me how beautiful she was and that she was going to be ok. I kept walking around the house trying to do too many things at once. I needed to put on some clothes, I needed shoes. "I'm sorry, I'm kind of in a fog"  I said to the paramedic, "It's ok" She said, "that's why we're here, take a breath, you can breathe now."

Febrile Seizures Are No Joke

Her dad couldn't come in the ambulance, there was only room for one. I felt like I was going to throw up the whole time. They had her hooked up to monitors. The paramedic cringed and told me she was going to have to test her blood sugar and in order to do it she would have to stab her foot. It was going to hurt. She apologized. I braced myself and she started but nothing. My daughter didn't even blink. She didn't cry. She didn't make a sound. She just stared into space. She hadn't made a sound in so long. I would have given anything just to hear her cry. They were asking me questions in the ambulance about how I knew it was a a seizure and what was happening. "Are you in this field?" one of them asked me, "no" I said, "I work in a facility, I call 911 a lot." We pulled into the ambulance bay and started for the door, "there's a code blue right there, do you see that a lot?" The paramedic asked me, gesturing to an elderly woman on a gurney outside going into full arrest. I still couldn't really see. "we'll have to wait, that women is in bad shape. Your daughter is stable. I'll get the doc to come out and talk to you when we get in." As we walked through the doors I saw another set of doors open up and in walked her dad's aunt and uncle. They are my daughter's babysitters, they are her second parents. They love her almost as much as I do.  They walked up to me and I fell into their arms. We all cried. I relaxed. It turned out that my daughters temperature had risen to over 104 degrees. By the time we had cooled her off a bit on the ambulance ride her temp was still 103.7. The doctors said she had had a febrile seizure caused by the fever. He said that 1 in three children have them and that they can occur up until age 6. He told me to watch her from now on if she starts to get hot. Cool showers, strip her clothes, whatever I have to do to get it down. She was only 20 minutes late on her Motrin when I sat down and did the math. I could have overlapped by an hour with Tylenol and Motrin. I could have put her in a cool bath. If I had known what could happen I could have avoided it. The doctor's say there is no long term damage and that she probably doesn't even remember it. I found out later that her dad and some of his siblings had the same issue when they were little. I urge you to check into your family history and determine if your child could be at risk. I encourage you to stay sharp and always be prepared.