Yesterday was the scariest day of my life...and one of the longest. I hate replaying it in my mind but I want it documented so that we remember the details. This post is more for us than you all, so feel free to skip over it - it's not near as fun as the usual post.
Saturday, May 28
Sierra woke up, ate breakfast and it seemed like a normal day. We went on a walk to the donut store and the first strange thing was that she didn't want to eat her donut hole. I thought she must just be full. When we got home she was acting very lethargic, started to be really fussy and just wanted me to hold her. She wasn't acting herself, but it looked like she was just very tired. I decided to put her in her crib just to see if she needed some rest time or a short morning nap (which is not something she takes anymore). She felt really hot when I picked her up so I took her temp at 9:30am - it was 103.1 F. Whoa, well that explained her behavior but she didn't have any sick symptoms - no congestion, runny nose, cough, etc. I gave her Tylenol and she fell right asleep. She slept for over 2 hours! (again, not normal since she doesn't usually nap until after lunch). When I got her out of the crib she still felt really hot so I checked her temp again and it was 102.6 at 12:30pm. That seemed still high with the Tylenol still in her system and the bottle says to give it every 4-6 hours so it wasn't time yet. I left a message with the Pedi nurse to call me back but didn't hear anything (turns out they had an error with their phone system and the page they sent the doctor never went through). Meanwhile I tried to feed Sierra lunch and she didn't want to eat.
At 1pm, Kyle convinced me we should just run to the after-hours clinic right by our house. I am SO thankful that he pushed me to go!!!! Usually I'm the one who wants to head straight to the doctor, but this time I was going to wait it out a bit. But since we had quite a few BBQs planned for the weekend, he thought it would be good to know if she was contagious and get her on some meds right away if so. Thank the Lord that we went!!!
We were the only ones there so we got called back right away. The nurse seemed to take forever asking us questions. By this point I was a little nervous because she was acting really lethargic again and was trembling a little bit on and off. Her temp at the clinic at 1:30pm was 104.4 F. It had been 4 hours since I gave her the Tylenol and I had it in my bag to give her again - but the nurse said the doctor would give it to her in a minute. (looking back, with such a high fever, I should have given her another dose...or Ibuprofen sooner) The doctor came in and checked her out and couldn't find any signs of what was causing the fever. She said her best guess was Hand, Foot, Mouth disease because they were seeing a lot of it and Sierra was indirectly exposed a week and a half ago. It can start with a fever and then show symptoms later, so that's what she was thinking. At 1:55pm they finally gave her Ibuprofen and said they wanted us to wait 45 min so they could see if it helped bring down the fever. Sierra was just laying on me and still trembling a little off and on. We were singing and she was responsive. Then all of a sudden (probably only 10 minutes after taking the meds), her eyes started to roll back and forth and her body felt weird. I stood up and told Kyle to go get the doctor. I ended up following him out of the room because very quickly her eyes rolled back and fixed in one position and her arms bent up and became stiff. The doctor met us in the hall and said she was having a Febrile Seizure, not to worry that they are common in toddlers. She led us to another room and told me to lay Sierra on the table. I cannot even describe how incredibly scary, awful, horrible the next few minutes were. I started to fall apart as I watched so helplessly as she lay there stiff, seizing, with bubbles/drool coming from her mouth. I just couldn't stop crying and pleading with the Lord to heal her. It was SO SCARY. I asked how long it would last and if she was breathing because it didn't look like it. She said that usually they are less than 1 minute and yes she was breathing. All the nurses and the doctor were in there and asked us to step out of the room. We could hear the doctor asking the nurses to call 911, take her blood and test her blood sugar, to get the oxygen and to get an IV stint put in her hand. Was this really happening to our baby? It was awful. And we could tell that it had been longer than 1 minute which was making me even more scared. My mind started to think about brain damage - I couldn't handle it.
and then we heard that sweet sound of our baby crying and the doctor's voice saying "there you are, that a girl"...and i could breathe again. the paramedics arrived right away and they let us back in the room. sierra was totally out of it, very still, just looking slowly around, very confused. they said that was normal for post-seizure behavior. i just wanted to pick her up and hold her forever! This is when the doctor told the paramedics the details of what happened and all of her levels and numbers - she was yellow on the spectrum but we don't know what that means. She told them that the seizure lasted longer than usual, 1-2 minutes. (we've come to find out they can actually last up to 5 or 10 minutes! i cannot even imagine!) They strapped Sierra's car seat to the stretcher and she and I were loaded into the back of the ambulance while Kyle drove and met us up there. She sat there looking exhausted, with her arms just hanging down to her sides, staring around. I kept asking her questions along the way to see how responsive she was - I just wanted to see our Sierra back to her normal self. She would answer a very tired "yeah" or "no", so I knew she was at least understanding and able to answer back. They took us to Dell Children's which is not super close and it seemed like it took forever. By the time we got there, Sierra was looking more alert. As I signed the computer form before stepping out, the paramedic said "good job Mommy" and Sierra looked over and said "yay Mommy" in her sweet voice. The paramedic started laughing at how cute she was and I knew she was going to be ok :)
We got to our room and she started talking our ears off, just like her normal self!!! The paramedics and ER staff were all very impressed with how the staff at the urgent care handled everything, specifically putting in the IV in her hand - apparently they don't usually do this because it's especially hard in a little toddler. We were there about 2 1/2 hours and then continued to give her Tylenol and Ibuprofen alternating every 3 hours for the fever. They monitored her fever and it was very slowly going down (103.1, 102.8, 102.6). They checked her out again and still did not find any other symptoms to explain the fever. Most likely they said it was a virus of some kind and would have to run its course.
That night at home was really rough. Sierra was so agitated by the high fever and just could not sleep. We knew she had to be so exhausted.
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