911

I'm sitting on our deck overlooking the lake and Makena is plopped on my lap and I'm reading her a book. That should have been my first warning sign: the fact that she was sitting still and listening as I read her Baby Bug after Baby Bug (a baby magazine of short stories). EM and I were blissfully enjoying a moment of calm when Makena started to jerk. I thought, "Great, I knew this was too good to be true". I started to set her down, thinking she wanted to get off, when I noticed that her head was cocked back as if looking over her shoulder and her eyes were rolling to the back of her head.

As the realization that something was terribly wrong hit me like a two by four, I quickly yelled at my husband to call 911 because Makena was having a seizure. I turned her over in my arms to brace her because her body was jerking so violently. Her eyes had disappeared and she was grunting with white foam forming around her lips. Waiting for someone to answer my husbands plea for help was torture in and of itself. He finally got an operator who instructed us to quickly strip Makena and cool her down. I ran into the bathroom and put her on the floor while the operator kept my husband on the phone and told him that the paramedics were on their way.

Makena was still jerking, I had her stripped and I discovered, to my horror, that her stomach was boiling hot -- abnormally so (I had been clueless up until then.) I ran towels under cold water and covered her head and stomach with them, constantly telling her that "Mama is here, mama's trying to help you..." In the meantime, EM was running in and out, to be in front of the house when help finally got there and to give me encouragement. I was inside, Makena was still shaking -- although now her eyes were back in place but she had a far-off look in her eyes and she was just moaning. She didn't see me... I didn't know if she could hear me.

I kept trying to stop my thoughts from going to the last moments I held my mother as she was dying... trying to remain positive. Telling myself that Makena might be epileptic... remembering my old roommate who had it and was fine... just trying not to cry and remain calm... because what good would it do?

Finally the paramedics got there and when they tried to take her from me, she started to cry. Everyone said that was a good thing. It meant that she was fighting. They started an i.v., oxygen, and the works and threw me on the stretcher with her strapped across my chest and wheeled us off to the E.R.. Just as they closed the doors, Jack appeared in the street. He didn't want us to leave until he could see Makena for himself (he had been playing video games with a friend, in his room, and was oblivious to the drama.) EM told him that Makena was not feeling well but that she was going to be okay. That seemed to reassure him and he let us close the doors to the vehicle and take off.

In the meantime, as relief was spreading that she was going to get help, I started being questioned about the black and blue bruises on her back. What? I realized that they were pointing to her birth marks, the Mongolian spots that stretched from her middle-back to tail bone. It was nauseating to think that they weren't ruling out child-abuse as a cause for her seizure.

By the time we got to the ER, the nurses and doctors decided to transfer me to the stretcher and treat her on top of me. They ordered blood tests, CAT scans and urine tests and pointed again to her Mongolian spots. I realized that even though we were in a mountain resort emergency room, that they hadn't come across too many Chinese babies. I told them to go on-line and google "Mongolian Spots". The paramedic came back and backed me up (he had just checked it out himself) and this seemed to appease them. Meanwhile EM had reached our pediatrician in town, who told him that she had most likely suffered from a febrile seizure and that she would be okay. He told him that 3 to 5% of children suffer from this and that once you reach that subgroup that the likelyhood of it happening again is 20%. It's the result of the child's body not being able to adjust to a spike in temperature. The temperature increases at a rapid rate just before the seizure, and sometimes -- as a result of the seizure -- so you don't necessarily see it coming.

Six hours later and the temperature down to 101 degrees, the ER confirmed what our pediatrician had told us in the first ten minutes, and they finally allowed us to go home. We were all drained and exhausted.

Now that I can safely say that Makena has fully recovered, I have met and spoken with four people whose children also had it -- and several times to boot. I feel like I'm now part of the "febrile seizure" club. I've been instructed and drilled by our pediatrician not to call 911 the next time it happens (unless the seizure lasts more that 2 minutes) but to cool the baby, call him and then drive her into the office. The paramedic/ER approach can be traumatic and more stressful than is otherwise necessary. My friend whose son had seizures five times before the age of four, also confirmed that she called the paramedics the first time and then never again after that.

I'm slightly more paranoid now. At the onset of a runny nose, we have to treat her as if she has a fever and if she is up for vaccinations, we also have to alternate between Motrin and Tylenol -- other than that, she's back to her active-exhausting self.

All this to explain why I hadn't posted in a while.

Is - exhausted.