My sweet little man turned 11 months old Monday. Unfortunately, it was another scary day of firsts for us as a family. About 5:45AM, his normal morning feeding time, Hilton cried out so I got up to go upstairs and nurse him. After I fumbled around for my glasses and clothes I realized he wasn't crying anymore. I looked up at our video monitor and saw him shaking. I walked over to the monitor and then yelled to Bobby, "Get up now; Hilton is having a seizure" and I took off running. He was still seizing when I got to his room so I turned him on his side and all this fluid started pouring out of his mouth. I yelled through the monitor to Bobby to call 911 and bring me the phone. After what seemed like 30 minutes he stopped seizing, reality was somewhere around 5 minutes, we think. As soon as he stopped seizing he started screaming and gazing off in the distance. This part was just as scary, if not more, than the actual seizure because my mind started trying to wonder into all the "what ifs." I picked him up, came downstairs, and told Bobby to call our friend Shannon to come get Aylin (who slept through the ENTIRE event) and made him go outside to wait for the ambulance. Hilton was inconsolable and not able to focus, I put him on my bed, literally rolled the still sleeping dog into her kennel, threw on some jeans and a t-shirt, picked H back up and grabbed the diaper bag. Then, finally, I saw the flashing lights of the ambulance pull up and I ran out to them with the baby (no sense in wasting time waiting on them to get stuff out, it took them long enough to get there). They laid him on the stretcher and started working and asking questions. The EMS person struggled getting the IV line in, had to do it twice before she got it and even then she really didn't have it, they had to redo it at the hospital. This was making me very mad (but I stayed calm, turned the other way and took a deep breath) about that time I heard someone ask (I think Shannon-who is a NICU nurse) if she got it this time and she said yes. Shannon later told me that if she hadn't got it she was going to step in and do it! <Side note here: I had a horrible experience with an EMS doing an IV on me when I had my 4 wheeler wreck. That person actually had to stick me twice and still ended up just shooting fluid into my skin not my vein. My arm swelled like a balloon in the injection site and it wasn't until I was admitted into the hospital that I got one of the nurses to remove it and do it correctly> Hilton finally stopped screaming and started focusing his eyes and just crying. I made them take him to Lebonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis, because I wanted the best experienced Children's doctors I could get. Hilton's vitals were good so I opted to skip our local hospital and go just a bit further.
(In the ambulance after I finally calmed him down)
They ran a urine, blood, EEG, and chest X-rays because they thought they heard something in his lungs. He slept in between every test and if he was out of my arms for a second he started crying.
The chest x-ray and blood work showed that he did infact have pneumonia.
(This was the worst test! I had to hold his arms above his head and lock him into this plastic tube so they could get the chest X-ray; he screamed his head off and was almost hyperventilating when I was able to get him out. During the test I had to stand behind the door and watch)
The EEG:
(They had to glue these pads to his head for this 45 minute test; afterward the nurse washed his head in baby oil and shampoo which made it stand up all over the place. I gave him a bath when we got home from the hospital)
His EEG came back looking great so his seizure was diagnosed as a febrile seizure. This is a seizure that occurs most commonly in children under 2 when they experience a rapid onset fever spike usually caused by some type of infection. Unfortunately Hilton will be at risk of having these seizures until he is 6 years old at which time he becomes very unlikely for his body to react to a fever spike with a seizure. We have no way of knowing how high his temp actually got when the seizure occurred, by the time he was in the ambulance and they were checking his fever it was only 101. Until the seizure he had no symptoms of being sick besides the runny nose and cough. His temperature was all over the place while we were at the hospital, as high as 103 and as low as 99. At one point, Hilton's body started tensing and his temperature rose from 100 to 103 in minutes, his heart rate reached 199! the ER doctor said the tensing of his body was a precursor of a febrile seizure but thankfully we got his temp to start going down before he had another one. He received a high dose of antibiotics through his IV and a dose of tylenol and motrin and went to sleep for a long time.
When he woke up his fever was only 99, he was smiling and HUNGRY! He had a bottle, ate snacks, and an entire jar of food; then peed and pooped and we were discharged from the hospital. He is on antibiotics for 10 days and a strict regiment of alternating tylenol and motrin every 3 hours for 24-36 hours. We are also suppose to do this EVERY time he runs a fever until he is 2! I do not like that last part because that seems like A LOT of medication, but the thought is that if we catch the fever and keep him medicated it won't spike causing him to have another seizure.
(His favorite part of the hospital stay was the little "ET phone home" light on his toe)
We had a follow up appointment today that went great and we are prepared to move on and deal with this. The doctors think the pneumonia infection will be gone within a few days and Aylin is still checking out completely in the clear. However, they are both to be on the antibiotics for 10 days just to be on the safe side.
I want to thank everyone who was praying for us, who checked on us throughout the day, offered to help with Aylin, who tried coming to the hospital, and those of you that went above and beyond. (1) Vern and Angie Schrimsher, Larry Everson, my dad who met us at the hospital, (2) my mom who kept Aylin, cleaned my house, came to the hospital, took Aylin to the doctor to get checked and spent the night just in case we had to head back to the hospital in the middle of the night. (3) my sister who entertained Aylin while we were with Hilton running all the tests (4) Lagina Etheridge who came over to the house at 6 AM just to be there to help and be with us probably making her late to work (5) Angie and Michelle Gitter who brought us dinner last night (6) Jerry Mitchell who came to the house at 6AM to be with Bobby and drive him up to the hospital, got us breakfast, filled up gas tanks, stayed there for a while with us, and came to the house that night to check on us before getting ready for bed (7) and Shannon Rister who took the brunt of Bobby's panicked phone call at 5:55 AM , dropped everything and got to our house while orchestrating others to get there to help, stayed with Aylin until my mom could get there, thought to pack Hilton some clothes and his lovey (which we couldn't have done without), and came to the hospital and stayed a while all before going to work SUPER late.
All I can say is I know without a shadow of a doubt that we are loved by our family, friends, and our church family (because we really do feel like you are our family) and we love you all dearly. Even today many of you have checked on us and it makes me very happy to know that my children are surrounded by so many people who love them and will be there for them as they grow up. Thank you all so much...It takes a village :)
