Tuesdays With Mami: Revenge of the Seize

The frog princess suffers from febrile seizures. And just when I start thinking "maybe she's hit that age when they will miraculously disappear" I'm proven wrong.

Saturday

She rolled up into my room before 6 a.m. As I commanded her to fall back asleep after she climbed in my bed she said "my tummy hurts" but was holding her throat. I asked if her throat hurt and she said yes then proceeded to fall asleep.

When we woke up she told me she'd just been thirsty and grabbed her water. As is my usual, the lips had gone to the forehead in the age old Mamihood thermometer move. She was cool.

It was her BFF's birthday and she was SO EXCITED to be going to the Frozen themed pool party.

As I opened the door I thought "let me grab her undies so that she doesn't ride back in a wet suit". We had been singing the Peg Plus Cat theme song. The door was ajar and seeing as my room is steps from the door, it took me what? Forty five seconds at most? As soon as I stepped out of my room, I knew something was wrong.

That wretched sound known all too well by those that have seen and heard someone seize was upon me. It took me 2 seconds to get to the door. And there she was in a full seizure on the stoop.

This is the thought that entered my mind even before I saw her "she was jumping around, fell on the concrete, hit her head and the fall caused a grand mal seizure". I did not realize that a fever had suddenly spiked on my excited girl that morning.

I called for help and woke up the neighborhood, I'm sure. Two things ran through my head:

• Is she breathing?
• Did she injure herself?

Her lips were already losing color. I turned her on her side and watched, prayed, called out orders. I held her head as best I could so it wouldn't hit up against the concrete while trying not to block her airway. It lasted 2, maybe 3 minutes.

Post Seizure Unconsciousness

It's not enough to watch your child convulse as you sit there helplessly, you have to deal with postictal state. My girl was unconscious for close to an hour. In that time, she shivered as her body temperature dropped during and after the seizure then proceeded to climb, slowly but surely.

Executive decision was made and I ran her to the ER understanding something was causing the seizure and it was probably an infection and keenly aware that I couldn't rouse her enough to give her medicine that would control the fever. I do believe Dante totally forgot to mention this level of hell.

The Verdict

At the ER, they went to take a throat culture. When the swab came out, I noticed pus. Fun times. Even though we got rid of her tonsils in November, she still managed to catch a strep infection.

We took her home with a Rx for antibiotics. There's a level of crankiness that takes over along with being plain ol' tired. She slept a lot on Saturday. Upset that she didn't go to her BFF's party and completely clueless as to what had happened. When I questioned her about the last thing she remembered before waking up in the car with me, she vaguely mentioned crouching on the stoop. She does this normally as we like to look at ants and other critters. This saved her from a full fall for which I'm grateful.

Mother's day took a back seat as I mothered (and probably smothered). I CANNOT wait for Life Patch to get going and for someone to call me about a trial or something. Anything to not have to go through this again.

Through all that, though, we are keenly aware of how lucky we are. How "it's just this". Even in the midst of our anguish we are filled with gratitude. My prayer is that this will be the LAST one she has. And that our experiences can perhaps help another parent going through a similar situation.