My Dearest Gabriella,
The morning of April 12, 2012 was one of the scariest times of my life. It was around 2:00 in the morning, and I was in Charlie's room feeding him when I heard you begin to scream. Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night because you've lost your binkie, but this scream was filled with terror. I though you might have had a nightmare.
I took Charlie into your room, and found you sitting up on the edge of your crib with a strange look on your face. I called you to me, and I lifted you up out of the crib into my arm with Charlie in the other arm. At that moment, your arms went straight out to your sides, and started shaking back and forth uncontrollably. You started screaming again, and I called your Dad to come and get you. He came right out and took you in his arms. He put his hand on your face to check your pupils, and it was at that time that you began to have a seizure. He laid you on our bed, while we watched with fear trying to decide what to do. I wanted to call 911, but your Dad said we needed to take you to straight to the ER. By this time you had stopped seizing, and you were mostly tired.
Earlier that day, you had a slight fever, but you were running around the house playing, so I didn't think it was very serious. You had some diarrhea, and you also didn't want to eat or drink anything. We gave you some medicine earlier in the day, but I had no idea what was in store for us.
We took you to the ER, and they got you right into a room. They hooked you up to an IV, and took some blood. You were not happy about either of those things, and you kept saying, "Owie, owie, owie." It broke my heart. They have this styrofoam splint that they wrap around your hand in order to keep the IV in place. We left the house so fast that we didn't bring your binkie, so I went to Walgreens and bought you two new binkies to help soothe you.
They did blood tests on you, and they took an x-ray of your lungs and heart. The x-ray machine they have for toddlers is horrible but necessary. I went with you to the room, and they had this wooden pillar that had two holes in the top for you to put your legs in. Then the nurses made you lift your arms put straight over your head while they enclosed you in a plastic tube so that you couldn't move. If they didn't do this, they would never be able to get you to sit still and take a proper x-ray. They said it was also good to have you crying so that they could get a good look at your lungs. I wanted to cry right along with you, but I knew you needed me to be strong. As soon as they were done, I got you out of the torture chamber and held you in my arms. We went back into the room, and waited for a long time for the doctor to come and tell us what was wrong.
The doctor said that the most likely reason for your seizure was Febrile seizures, which means that you have a seizure when your fever gets too high. He said that one in 20 (or 5%) of children get this. He said that we needed to try and keep your fever down with Tylenol or Motrin and make sure not to put you in clothes that are too warm. Your fever did go down, and they sent us home from the ER at around 7:30 in the morning.
We kept an eye on you the next day, and your fever stayed down throughout the day. You were up and playing again, and you seemed to be fine. That evening, however, your fever started to spike again. I tried to get you to eat something, but you wouldn't eat anything. You even rejected my offer of Jelly Bellies. I called the nurses help line, and they told me to give you a luke warm bath. I tried that, but it your fever just kept going up. The medication didn't seem to be working either.
We called our home teacher Gabe Mourik asd asked him to come over and help your Dad give you a blessing. He anointed the oil, and your father gave you a blessing that you would not have any more seizures. Bro. Mourik also brought over his thermometer that worked better than ours, and it read your temperature at 104.6. We both agreed that we did not want to take our chances again, so we took you back to the ER. Fortunately, Brooke Mourik agreed to stay overnight at our house and look after Charlie, and we arranged for Jessica Kinsey to come and pick him up in the morning.
They had to hook you up to another IV, and this time, you said, "Owie," as soon as the nurses walked in the door. It was so sad, but I knew it was what you needed. They transferred you into a room in the hospital, where we waited to hear from Dr. Subbu, your pediatrician, in the morning. They also gave you an antibiotic in case of infection. The nurses at the hospital were very kind. They checked your IV to make sure it was in properly, and they were sympathetic to us.
At this point, you were exhausted from two nights without much sleep. Sadly, every time you tried to fall asleep, your body would start twitching, and it would wake you up. You didn't have anymore seizures, but your body was still reacting to your high fever. You would only be able to sleep for about five minutes at a time before your body would jolt you awake. Once we got into the room, I slept with you on my chest in the fold-out bed in the room. You were frightened, confused, and didn't want to sleep in the hospital bed by yourself.
Throughout the night, you kept waking up and pointing at your arm with the IV in it saying, "Owie, owie, owie." I thought that you were just uncomfortable. I found out much later in the morning, after the fluid was completely empty, that the IV had come loose and all of the fluids had drained into your arm. Your arm was as hard as a rock. Your skin had stretched so much that it actually split in two places. As if you hadn't been through enough, and now you had to deal with your arm being in pain as well.
Dr. Subbu arrived at the hospital, and she was able to answer a lot of our questions and calm our concerns. She said that you had hand, mouth, and foot disease. Charlie had this a couple of weeks prior, but he had blisters all over his hands and feet. You had no blisters in your body except for your throat. This made you not want to eat or drink. The combination of the high fever, diarrhea, and not eating or drinking made it impossible for your body to heal itself. She said the dehydration caused your immune system to weaken. She advised us to stay in the hospital until we could get you to eat or drink something.
As soon as you were unhooked from the IV, all you wanted to do was walk around the hospital. Your Dad and I took you out for walks where we looked at the pictures on the walls and the quilts that were on display in the hospital.
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| We had to keep your arm elevated and wrapped with a warm cloth in order to help the fluids drain out of it. That's your arm on Dad's other shoulder. |
Eventually you drank some of your bottle and you ate a little bit of Jell-O. You were up and playing around in the play room, and I felt like you (and I) were both ready to go home. We didn't get home until that evening. Your fever stayed down, and you continued to eat and drink a little here and there.
That night, you were so scared to go to sleep in your own bed again. The first night you were home, I let you fall asleep on me and then I transferred you to your bed. Every time you woke up, I would come to your room and hold you for a minute, let you fall back to sleep, and then transfer you again. The second night home, I thought I needed to get you back on the horse, so I let you cry for a minute, I would come in and comfort you but I wouldn't let you fall asleep with me. You had to learn to sleep on your own again. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, and it broke my heart to listen to you cry because you were so afraid. I was a little afraid too, honestly, but we both needed to get back into our routines, and you needed some good sleep.
I am so grateful that you are okay and that your body has fully healed. I love you so much. I am also thankful that your Dad has the priesthood and was able to give you a blessing. Just be warned that if I freak out every time you get a fever, this is the reason why.
XOXOXO,
Mom
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