I'll preface this post with saying that Blake is totally fine. I'm still recovering from the scare of it all. I keep replaying in my head how I found Blake, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
We were having a normal morning. I even bundled the kids up and took them outside to play in some fresh snow. Around 11:00 I decided I better get in the shower, so I put Blake in his crib like I always do. He likes playing in there & he's safe with toys that he can't choke on. I went into his room about 15 minutes or so later and found him slumped over, not normal color, shaking/jerking his arms weird, eyes rolling back. I didn't even think he was breathing as he was making weird noises because he was choking on phlegm. I didn't know what was going on & quick grabbed him and was hitting his back trying to clear his airway to make sure he was breathing. It's terrible to say or even think about again, but at the time it was happening I thought he was dying. It was the most horrible feeling ever. I called 911 & the police were here in a couple minutes and by then I was sure he was breathing but he was still totally out of it and making strange moaning noises. When the ambulance came the paramedics didn't seem too worried, which made me feel a little bit better although I was still very shaken up because I didn't know what was going on. I knew if it was something bad, we'd be rushing to the ER in the ambulance. They asked me to take his temp & he had fever of 102.3. The fever came on super fast because he was totally normal/not hot when I put him in the crib. I think this is the time they mentioned he might have had a
febrile seizure. Coincidentally my friend's daughter named Blake, had one not too long ago so we had just been talking about it so I was a little bit familiar with what it was. Although when I found him I had no idea that's what was happening.
They said that they would bring him in the ambulance if we wanted (Gabe had raced home from work and had gotten there by then) or we could also call our doctor and see if we can get in right away or else we can take him to the ER ourselves. We decided to take him in the ER ourselves. Our neighbor was just getting home and took Campbell as we were getting into the car, so that couldn't have worked out any better as far as not having to worry about Campbell.
Sidenote: Campbell was very calm during this whole ordeal. She was in the kitchen quietly playing with stickers. Looking back it was probably a coping mechanism for her to go into a shell because her mom was so upset. But after the ambulance left, she came up to us and was kind of fake crying and said "I'm sad because I didn't get any attention." I just had to laugh.
We got in right away at the ER. Blake was basically sleeping and very calm. He had gotten a little bump on his head from hitting his head on the table earlier in the day so they did a CT scan just to make sure it wasn't a concussion. He was so out of it still that he woke up and then went back to sleep as they were strapping him in for the CT scan. If you know Blake, that's totally not normal - he would normally be fighting back hard to not wanting to be strapped down. Then they took a bunch of blood to see if he had some kind of infection that caused the fever. Only when a rookie was drawing his blood & putting in his IV did Blake finally wake up. Poor Blake, it took FOREVER and there was a ton of blood everywhere. I didn't mind that much because it was just so nice to hear him make some normal noise, even if it was screaming. The pediatrician was there & was reassuring us that she was happy that he was waking up.
The pediatrician on call was a doctor that I had seen before and I was really happy to see her. She had awesome bedside manner & kept reassuring me that everything was ok & that I did nothing wrong by leaving him in his crib while I took a shower. She said it could have happened anytime and not to blame myself for it. She explained febrile seizures are relatively common and it's rare to have another one. It's very, very rare for it to be something related to epilepsy or something more serious. The seizure happens because of a sudden onset of a fever. It's not necessarily how high the fever gets, but how fast it comes on.
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| Resting in the ER watching Clifford after blood draw and getting his IV inserted. |
They decided to admit him to the hospital so they could observe him overnight because they didn't know how long the seizure had lasted, because they didn't know what was causing the fever and also probably mainly because he didn't come out of his
postictal state (period after a seizure where one is super tired & out of it) for a couple hours. They would have liked to see him come out of that a lot quicker. So, I spent the night with Blake at the hospital while Gabe went home to stay at home with Campbell. Blake he had a low 100 degree or so fever overnight but after dinner or so her seemed totally fine. He went to sleep well and got woken up a couple times by the nurses checking his vitals, but was a very good patient. The nurses gave him compliments on how well he took his Tylenol and let them take his temperature.
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| This was taken around 3:00 am. He was up from 1:30-3:30 in the morning wanting to go play with the trucks in the toy room. It was great to see him acting normal even if it was in the middle of the night. |
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| Watching Diego & eating Cheerios for breakfast, just waiting to get the IV out and be discharged. |
It was quite an experience. Not one I'd want to relive, although if it does happen again, at least I'll know what was happening.
Now the hospital bill....unfortunately our insurance just changed so it got very expensive to be on our old plan, so now we're on a high deductible plan. The way it works is that we pay a $3,000 deductible before insurance starts paying anything. That's going to be easy to reach with the hospital stay. YIKES! Although I am very thankful for the great care that Blake received from everyone in the ER and hospital so we will gladly pay for it!
