You Don’t Really Know Yourself Until Something Bad Happens

This weekend, I learned what a febrile seizure is.

Keep in mind, I am not a doctor. I am just relating what I was told.

When a baby’s temperature rises or falls too quickly, it can cause seizures. They can become unresponsive; seemingly unaware of their surroundings or the people with them. They may stare into space and make strange sounds. Their hands and feet may turn cold, because they concentrate circulation in their trunks and heads. They may look like they’re dying. As bad as they look, febrile seizures are harmless.

It is unfortunate that I didn’t know any of this last week. Somehow I became old without ever being told. My wife didn’t know, either.

Our son took a bunch of shots at his first-year appointment. Among them, Mumps-Measles-Rubella and the chickenpox shot. They handed us the usual papers about side effects, and because they always say the same things, we didn’t pay any attention to them.

Days later, he had some side effects. We didn’t know they were related to the shots, and we didn’t suspect the shots because of the long delay. Later, we learned this is normal.

On Thursday, he threw up twice, and his body seemed hot while his hands were cold. He seemed a little less energetic. A dubious forehead thermometer read 98.3. We didn’t think it was a big deal, but then I noticed that his fingers seemed blue, so I told my wife to get in the car.

As we were getting ready to go, she reminded me he had been eating blueberries. He loves them, and he usually eats a big serving for breakfast. She thought the berries explained the color of his fingers. It sounded reasonable, and he didn’t look too bad. We decided to watch him carefully, and he was fine all night and most of the next day.

In retrospect, I think his fingers were blue because of reduced circulation as well as blueberries. I think the berry pigment confused me. It was definitely there, but I think his fingers were more blue when I first noticed the color than they were when we decided to stay home. It’s impossible to be sure.

On Friday night, he got very warm, except for his hands, arms, and legs. My wife has a tendency to bundle him up too much, and he was wearing a fleece romper in a warm room, so we took it off. He threw up a couple of times, but babies do that for all kinds of reasons, so we didn’t get excited right away.

His temperature, as measured by an unreliable forehead thermometer, went from 102.8 to 103.1. Babies can run much higher temperatures than adults without harm, so we didn’t panic. I had a fever of over 106 when I was less than a year old.

We called his pediatrician’s office’s after-hours number, and a doctor told us to get Tylenol and ibuprofen into him to cut the fever. He said we should bring him in the next day.

I went out and bought children’s Tylenol and ibuprofen. He threw up when we tried to shoot the liquid ibuprofen in, probably because my wife had a hard time controlling the syringe. It went too far into his mouth.

I decided to go get acetaminophen suppositories. When I got up and prepared to leave, he started seizing. He stared at the ceiling. He didn’t answer when his mother tried to get his attention.

That was all we needed to see. We got in the car, and my wife held him in his arms while I drove. We didn’t bother with the car seat.

I ran the only red light we encountered. I got up to around 90. I saw a cop parked by the road, and I blew right by him. I thought it was better to be arrested than to lose a son.

He pulled out and started chasing me, but he didn’t turn his lights on, so I kept going. I turned my hazard lights on in an effort to let him know I had a reason for continuing to speed while he was right behind me.

He finally turned on his lights about 200 yards from the ER entrance, so I pulled over. When he got to the car, I told him my son was having a fit. He asked what that meant, and I said he was unresponsive. He let me drive on to the ER, which he should have done to begin with, since I was almost there.

I dropped my wife at the entrance and parked the car. I went in to join her, taking care to leave my carry piece in the center console. By now, there were several police cars in the lot, and at least one had its lights flashing. Nobody tried to stop me on the way in.

I didn’t know if the cops were there for me or we had just arrived at a time when they happened to be responding to an unrelated call. It turned out they were there for me.

We were surprised to see that the staff was not quite as excited as we were. It took maybe two minutes to get him past the lobby. They must have known more than we did about his problem.

There were several officers in the lobby, including the one who pulled me over. I sent my wife on her way and asked him if we were going to have a problem. I was ready to go to jail. I didn’t care at all. They had a solid case for various traffic violations and a weak felony case for fleeing and eluding, but these things meant nothing at all to me.

I was thinking about finding a local attorney and bonding out as quickly as I could, and I knew that a worst-case scenario was a sentence of a few years, plus the loss of some of my civil rights. I thought it was unlikely that a prosecutor or judge would follow through, but these things were on my mind. I was thinking about possible paths the future might take.

I have always found prison scary, but not on that night. Better to have my son and wife visit me in prison than see our beautiful baby buried and have the light of our lives go out.

The officer who pulled me said, “No, you’re good.” He took my license for a while, and that was it.

We spent about 6 hours in an ER room. They drew blood. They put our son on an IV because they thought he was dehydrated. He got a chest x-ray. At first, he was lethargic, and that made him easy to treat, but as he got better, he started acting like himself. Trying to pull out the IV. Fighting the doctor when he tried to give him more ibuprofen.

His temperature dropped. He started smiling. He wasn’t quite himself, but he was okay.

I can tell you what we were told. They said the vaccines he took sometimes caused delayed fevers. They told us this was the most likely reason he had seized. They said it would do no permanent harm.

Since coming home, we have learned that febrile seizures are not rare. I suppose I have had them myself, because I had what my mother called “convulsions” when I had the 106 fever, but I never learned much about them. A friend has told us her daughter had them at 16 months and two years.

Our plan now is to get Tylenol suppositories and watch him carefully if his temperature changes in the future. We can’t find his reliable butt thermometer, but we will have one on hand from now on.

He scared us a little bit the day before his ER visit, and we prayed. Before I got out of bed the next day, I kept hearing and repeating, “You saved my baby.” It just rose up inside me. Then he had his second episode and the hospital visit. But again, medical wisdom says he was never in any danger, so draw your own conclusion.

The odds were against him having a fever. The odds of a seizure were low. The odds that anything bad would happen to him if he had a seizure were low, but then he had already beaten the odds twice.

It looks like the chickenpox shot is what got him. There are a couple of different ways one-year-olds receive vaccinations. They can receive Measles-Mumps-Rubella, which is one shot. They can receive Measles-Mumps-Rubella-Varicella, which is one shot, and the varicella term refers to chickenpox. They can also receive MMR plus a separate chickenpox shot, as our son did. Any combination involving chickenpox has a very significant chance of causing a high fever.

Good thing for parents to know.

I think that instead of handing parents a sheet they have seen many times before, listing vaccination risks, doctors who vaccinate kids for chickenpox should take time to explain that this is not just another shot. Also, I think it’s best to get chickenpox vaccinations on Mondays so any resulting fevers are less likely to strike on weekends when doctors’ offices are closed.

That’s the story. Our son is fine. I have not been charged with anything. We understand febrile seizures. I suddenly know a lot more about what I am capable of when my child is in danger.

He is doing well. During his doctor visit, his height came in at 32″, which is somewhere between the 95th and 98th percentile, depending on whom you ask. If it were to continue, he would be tall enough to be advantaged but not tall enough to have problems getting in cars or buying clothes.

He is very advanced. He can jump. He can walk and even dance backward. He teases his mom, showing her the TV remote and then running away. He gets into “conversations” with me. I tell him he can’t do something, and he grunts and stamps his feet as though saying he strenuously objects and wants an appeal. He can kick a ball. He carries the ball to me and hands it to me. This all adds up to trouble in the short term, because we have to find ways to occupy him so he doesn’t destroy everything we own.

He’s still cute and incredibly photogenic. The most photogenic person I have ever seen or heard of. If I take 100 photos of him and his mother, I will have to discard maybe 5 because of him and 40 because of her.

Checkout ladies and Costo receipt-checkers live to see him. A lady at Fresh Market has even learned his special greeting dance. Calls him her favorite baby.

All in all, things are great. I’m just glad the fever is gone.