Our First Crisis
Though things seemed under control, I could sense that this was much more serious than what we had ever experienced so we made up a bed by her crib and her dad and I took turn to stay with her through the night. Indeed, at midnight, she woke up fussy and the fever had returned. She threw up and did not want to go back to her crib. We let her sleep with us. She tossed and turned and fussed all night long and her fever was not letting down a bit. I was almost praying for morning to come sooner. At five o'clock, I took over from her dad for the last shift. She tossed and turned and fussed some more all the time with a fever. Six o'clock, Samantha sat up and I held her up trying to calm her back to sleep some more. That's when she started to jerk and shake in my arms. Her limbs dropped motionless on her sides. Her face was ghost white. She had no expression of life. Her mouth clung shut with saliva dripping form one corner. I almost collapsed too. My heart sank into an abyss and I gave out a shriek that woke my husband up instantly. Seeing how she was, he called 911 immediately while I put her on the floor trying to get her out of her trance. There was no answer on the other end of the phone. He asked me to call while he took our baby in his arms. His voice was trembling. I called again this time there was someone answering. The operator asked me to calm down, asked questions about our baby, and assured us help was on its way. In the meantime, Samantha's seizures had stopped and she was weak but breathing on her own. Almost instantaneously, the fire fighters appeared at our door. They took over the baby, checked her signs, asked us questions while we all waited for the ambulance. The ambulance arrived, the paramedics again checked her vital signs and asked us questions and assured us that she was doing quite well before we all set out for the hospital. I boarded the ambulance with Samantha, the paramedics let me hold her and she started to recognize her surroundings and resisted the probing from the paramedics. "That's a good sign," the paramedics commented.
It was early and quiet in the emergency room. Before taking over, the nurse on duty conversed with the paramedics to find out what's going on, then she took Samantha's temperature, gave her a dose of Advil, and paged her pediatrician. While waiting for her doctor to arrive, the nurse gave us pointers on how to handle high fevers in a baby and informed us that her condition, called febrile seizures, was not at all uncommon among very young children. She explained in a comforting tone that the seizure causes no permanent damage. Samantha's pediatrician arrived, examined her, ordered some test, and stuck to his diagnoses that the fever was virus related while the swelling eye could be a bug bite. The swelling at this time had reduced somewhat and so did the fever. Before releasing us from the ER, the doctor explained some more why he thought what he thought and stressed warning signs for us to watch out for and sent us on our way. Feeling rather helpless, I constantly have to remind myself that we choose this pediatrician exactly because he does not rush to prescribe medicine for ever little symptom.
The next forty eight hours passed by very slowly. Every four hours day or night, we checked Samantha's temperature. Tylenol did not bring down her fever effectively. Advil did but her doctor had cautioned us against using it too much. We could not bear to live though another episode of her seizures, but we did not want to laden her little body with too much potent chemicals either. So daytime, we used Tylenol and nighttime, only when her fever seemed fearfully high we'd resort to Advil. Feeding time was tough also. She had lost her appetite on all things and was living on juices only. Saturday morning finally came, the fever started to let down and she had red spots on her body, though only a few. This could be a classic case of Roseola Infantum. We rejoiced, much too early, however. Noon time, her fever flared up yet again, we called the doctor and he asked us to come in right away. The doctor examined her, at this time, she was covered with red spots and with a fever of 102 degree. Mind-boggling, the doctor commented. Further examination reveled that she now had ear infection and that gave the doctor probable cause to prescribe antibiotics. There goes my proud records: Before this day my baby had never had an ear infections and she had never had to ingest antibiotics. Well, never said never.
It was Mother's day and my baby was sick. I felt like a failure as a mother. "You can't hurry a recovery," my husband had to remind me. And Recovering she was. Her fever flared up only every 12 hours. The swelling around her left eye was now cleared. She would laugh a little and play a little, though only a little. Just two days ago, she had high fever constantly, spent much of her time sleeping, was cranky and rejected our every attempt to please her. She still did not have much an appetite. "One more day," I prayed. Monday, we returned to the doctor's. Samantha had lingering fever of about 100 degree. The doctor pondered whether to prescribe another kind of antibiotics but decided against it. One more day he said. One more day I agreed. And one more it took. Tuesday morning, Samantha woke up without a fever and Tylenol free for 24 hours. Her body was almost cleared of rashes. And she would show interests in food voluntarily. That for me was "the" recovering sign I'd been looking for.
Six days, it took, for Samantha to ride out her first serious illness. Six times more agonizing than the twenty plus hours I spent in labor. Giving birth to me is no longer the hardest thing I had ever done. Raising a child, weathering through her sick days is now on the very top of my list.