October 28, 2010

Thursday started out as any other day around here. Piper had a little dress up activity for school which made us run a little late in the morning. Then Violet had a pj party at her preschool so we got ready for that as well. Like I said, normal. After Ruby and I got home from dropoff I noticed that she seemed a little tired but we still played for a bit and then I decided to lay down and nurse her so that she could rest before we had to pick up Violet at noon. She felt a little warm but it is still mid 80's here and I am hot as heck myself so I blew it off. Before we left to pick up Violet she seemed much warmer so I decided to take her temp just to see what it was and it came back 101.2 so I gave her some Tylenol and we left. Before we got to the main road I heard her scream but it wasn't a normal Ruby scream it was weird. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw her staring up at the ceiling. I called to her but she didn't respond so I immediately pulled over. She wasn't responding to me at all and then she started to have a seizure. Her little eyes rolled back in her head and she was shaking. There was nothing I could do for her. The next few minutes will forever be tattooed on my brain. I got my phone and dialed 911. It felt like an eternity for the ambulance to get to us but it was only around 6 minutes. Damn Brawley traffic. I was trying to talk to her, the 911 operator, and then just plain crying my eyes out. I left panicked voicemails to Matt and my friend Rachael. No one was answering so in addition to what was going on I was worried who would get Violet? Who would be there for Piper to get off the bus? The EMS got Ruby and I into the ambulance put an IV with fluids in her and we were off. While in the ambulance both Matt and Rachael called back. Thank goodness for Matt being off this weekend so he was able to come up from work and be with us. We got to the hospital and Ruby was just clinging to me. Matt arrived almost the same time with Violet - think he drove a little fast? It appeared that what Ruby had was called a Febrile Seizure which is a seizure brought on by your temperature rising very quickly. Then they started talking CT scan and blood work. The worry that you feel when they talk about the alternative possibilities is overwhelming. The CT came back fine but her blood work revealed a high white cell count so we had to also get a chest x-ray and she had to have a catheter to get a urine sample. My poor baby had a seizure, was poked, prodded, x-rayed, and now the uncomfortable catheter inserted all in one day. Bless her heart she was so good the entire time we were at the hospital. I am so thankful to still be nursing b/c I don't think that I could have comforted her w/o it. She nursed for probably 3 hours while we were there. Yes, much of that time I was her pacifier but I will gladly be that for her if it makes her feel safe in a very strange situation. Finally 4 hours later everything came back ok and we were free to go. She will see her regular doctor today (Friday). I can't stop crying over it. Everytime I think of my baby having that seizure I burst into tears. We are so lucky that it wasn't as serious as it could have been and hopefully this will be an isolated incident.

I want to say I will eternally be grateful to Rachael for checking her voicemail before heading in to volunteer with her daughter's kindergarten class. Taking our older girls made our day that much easier. I know that the EMS won't read my blog (lol) but his name was Dan and he was fabulous! Took excellent care of my babe and calmed me as well. I don't know that emergency nurse's name at the hospital but she was fabulous! She was caring and sweet with our baby even though she had to do uncomfortable things to her. There were many nurses that heard a baby was in the ER and popped their heads into our room, it was nice they all seemed to care about her. Our hospital gets a bad rap sometimes but they came through for our family yesterday.