poor sick little baby...11.12

sooooo...we had an interesting evening a few weeks ago! baby jacob had acted a little "off" during the evening hours and then was completely lethargic and didn't want to really wake up from his last nap that day.

then, about 9:30pm, he started screaming from his crib. when jake wakes up, he typically just starts babbling and singing...never crying. and definitely not like this. he was wailing. when i went to check on him he was screaming out in pain and cringing his whole body in pain. i stripped his clothes off to make sure he wasn't getting bitten by something...that's what his reaction seemed like. anyways...so, he kept doing this and was completely inconsolable...so i called the nurses line at our pediatrician's office. first time we have ever called the after hours line. i didn't realize we had to wait for a nurse to call us back...

so, we decided to head on to the ER ourselves...when we were driving there, he started vomiting. that even freaked me out more. my mind was racing with all the tidbits of information i learned in college and working in the hospitals. i was a basket case...

we got to the ER and they got us back immediately. everything was pretty routine...initial check looked pretty normal. tim slipped out to use the restroom, and that's when things got wild...baby jake had a febrile seizure. oh. my. goodness...the WORST moment of my life as a mommy.

that really freaked out the MD and nursing staff as well, since we weren't at a pediatric hospital. so, they started 2 IV's, put him on oxygen, and ordered a stat CT scan of his head and a stat chest x-ray...AND they called an ambulance to transfer us to lebonheur downtown...

[this was the most surreal moment of my life. i really felt like i was in a medical drama on tv. i just kept thinking, i can't be the mom standing here while the hospital staff is working on my baby...]

so, all the tests came back negative for anything serious, but they still felt we should be seen by a pediatric emergency physician...tim and baby jake rode in the ambulance and i followed in our car. when we got downtown, we waited for a while for the doctor to see us. baby jake was DONE at this point. he had been sleeping most of the time since his seizure. this whole wild ride began after he's normally been asleep for 3 or 4 hours to begin with!

so, the doctor comes in our room and does a quick exam and says everything looks normal. and then goes into the longest spiel i have ever heard about febrile seizures vs. a seizure disorder and ALL of the possible causes/treatments/prognoses. ugh! of course i was worried about the seizure, but what i was REALLY worried about was what caused his pain and screaming that led us to the ER to begin with! and all anyone could talk about after the febrile seizure was the febrile seizure!!!

so, we were sent home from the ER at 4:30am with a ton of educational information about febrile seizures and a prescription for a drug to give if jake were ever to have another febrile seizure that lasted longer than 5 minutes...we all fell into bed as soon as we got home. sweet baby had been sleeping since before he got in his car seat...

[i realize this is the world's longest story, but i rely on this blog to be my scrapbook of my kiddo's lives, so bare with me...this is mostly for me before i forget everything that happened!]

anyway...we tried to sleep most of the day to recover, and then headed to our regular pediatrician at 4pm for a follow up appointment...dr. bob checked jake out again and did repeat blood work which indicated we were probably dealing with a virus that was causing jake stomach pains and caused the spike in temperature resulting in the febrile seizure...

dr. bob pretty much summed up the whole thing [obviously he's a little more succinct that me :)] by saying, "jacob was normal before the seizure, and he's normal now. you and tim will NEVER be the same".

the pictures below are of jake's first ever sucker. poor guy was SO SO angry every time someone restrained him after all the junk he had to deal with in the preceding 24 hours. so, we decided he deserved a little treat/distraction during his blood draw. even though he still looks pitiful with his sweaty hair and sad, watery eyes, you can tell he enjoyed the sucker :)



p.s. baby jacob has been back to normal since about 2 days after all this mess. sweet little man gave us quite a scare!!!