As I’ve mentioned before, I am not a very dramatic person by nature. I can’t even watch shows like The Bachelor because the drama and exaggeration bother me so much. However, we’ve had a fairly dramatic winter in the Russum household much to my dismay. Since February alone, I’ve called 911 twice. Once for my car accident and once because Zianne had a seizure in the middle of the night. I am writing this post only to help other parents who might be frantically searching the internet for information about their feverish baby at 3am like I was just a few months ago.
Micah and I are not super into Valentine’s Day, and this year proved to be no exception. We spent most of our afternoon cleaning out the garage while Zianne napped. Our consolation prize for dealing with the world’s worst home maintenance task was free babysitting later that evening. Our church was offering free childcare for a “parents’ night out” and we were more than happy to take them up on the offer. We didn’t have huge plans but figured we would grab dinner at a non-romantic restaurant (BBQ) to avoid the crowds and enjoy some adult conversation for an hour or two while our child played happily at church.
However, when Zianne woke up from nap our plans instantly changed. She seemed perfectly healthy before her nap and now she was hot to the touch and her temperature read 102. I was slightly disappointed that we would have to miss the childcare opportunity, but I gave her a dose of Motrin, and we decided we would just bring her with us to dinner. She was in good spirits, had a normal appetite, and showed no other signs of sickness {other than a mildly drippy/stuffy nose that she’d had all winter}. We got home around 8:00pm and Zianne still had a fever. I gave her another dose of Motrin and we put her to bed. We had no idea it was going to be our hardest night of parenting yet.
Zianne hardly slept. She was restless and woke up crying every hour of the night, which is completely unlike her even when she’s sick. Micah and I took turns rocking her and resettling her – at 10pm, 11pm, midnight and so on. Z was still warm and I was anxious for six hours to pass, so I could give her another dose of medicine. At 2am I was rocking her and every time she would start to fall asleep her body would jerk and she would wake herself up. This happened four or five times in 20 minutes, but I finally got her to sleep and laid her back in her crib. By 3am, she was up again. I took her temperature and it read 103.8! Thankfully, I was able to give her another dose of ibuprofen at this point. Micah came in to her room to take over, and I stumbled my way back to bed, since I had slept maybe an hour at this point.
A few minutes later, Micah walked into our room carrying Z and he nudged my shoulder. “Hey, I want you to look up information about seizures on your phone. Zianne is making these weird twitching movements.” Since I had seen her make jerking movement just an hour earlier, I didn’t question it. I grabbed my phone and quickly began searching for information related to babies, fevers, and seizures. I had just finished skimming an article about how babies sometimes have febrile seizures when their temperature reaches around 104 degrees, when Micah yelled out. There was our precious daughter lying on our bed next to us, eyes rolled back into her head, shaking uncontrollably. Thankfully, I had read enough of the article to know that these seizures usually do not result in any long-term damage, and that it should end on its own in a few seconds or minutes. Despite this, I decided to call 911. No amount of internet information can really convince you not to call 911 when your 17 month old child is seizing on your bed. Micah and I said a quick prayer over Zianne and then I dialed the phone as Micah held Z’s shaking body and continued to pray over her.
Spiritual note: Although I had read the febrile seizure article, I had no time to convey any of the information to Micah before Zianne actually started seizing. It worked out so well that I was the one on the phone with emergency services, since I had a little background on what was likely happening. Micah, on the other hand, had no idea what was going on and was praying over our baby with such fervor as he held her. I love how God equipped us both and assigned us each to play a certain role during the scary situation.
Zianne’s seizure lasted about five minutes, which is fairly long. These seizures can last from a few seconds to 15 minutes, but longer than a minute or two is rare. We could hear the sirens approaching our house as she began to come out of it with these long moaning sounds, like she was trying to cry but wasn’t physically able to yet.
Before we knew it there were six firemen and a stretcher in our living room. Micah held Zianne while they checked her vitals and gave her oxygen. At this point, the most recent dose of fever medication I had given her was kicking in {along with the seizure which is the brain’s way of telling the body to cool down} and her temperature was back down to 101. Micah tended to Zianne and the head firefighter filled me in on our options…
He confirmed that it was a febrile seizure, likely caused by some type of virus. We had the choice to take Zianne to the nearby children’s hospital where they would monitor her fever and do a blood test on the off-chance there was a bacterial cause, but since this was so unlikely he recommended we keep her home. The chances of her having another seizure were low, and it would be better to avoid exposing her already-sick body to all the other illnesses present at the hospital. Instead, he said we should begin alternating doses of Tylenol and Motrin every 2-3 hours to keep her fever at bay. When you switch between acetaminophen and ibuprofen you can give a dose more often, since the body responds to them differently. He said it’s the same procedure the nurses would follow at the hospital.
After Zianne started responding cognitively (she was pretty drowsy for the first 10-15 minutes after the seizure), we signed off on paperwork stating that we were choosing to keep her at home and the kind firemen departed. At this point, it was around 4am. Our next problem was that we had no Tylenol in the house, so Micah began an hour-long trek across town to find some. The 24 hour Walgreen’s nearest to us was conveniently closed for remodeling, so he had to drive all over the place looking for another open store. While he was gone, Zianne and I read and watched shows on my phone. I wanted to keep her awake until Micah was home and she could take her next dose of medicine. When Micah finally returned we gave her Tylenol around 5am, and we all fell asleep in our bed together. I awoke to my alarm at 7:30am to give her a dose of ibuprofen and went back to sleep. By 8:30am our feverish child was up and ready to start her day. Her temperature was down to 99 at this point, so we sleepily hobbled away from our bed to take care of our toddler who was acting like she had slept peacefully all night.
Thankfully, Zianne napped from 10am-2pm, so we were able to rest too. Micah slept and I drank coffee on the couch. When Z woke up from her nap I noticed a rash forming on her legs and back. I actually thought I had noticed a few dots on her foot when the firemen were at our house the night before, but they were really faint at that time, and I was tired and not sure if I was imagining things. By this point, there was a pronounced rash that looked like tiny red pin pricks all over her skin. It was not raised and it didn’t really seem to be irritating her. With a quick internet search, I ruled out measles, rubella, or any type of pox. Measles and rubella start at the head and move down the body (this was the opposite), and the rash in no way looked like blisters. I finally decided Roseola was most likely. It’s a virus marked by a rapidly increasing fever (uh… yep), with rare cases resulting in a seizure. It only happens in children between 6 months and 3 years of age. When the fever breaks, the body typically breaks out into a tiny dotted rash that typically starts on the trunk and moves to the arms and legs.
I took Zianne to the doctor the next day and he confirmed that Roseola was most likely. It’s suggested that kids are contagious until the rash is gone, which usually takes a few days. However, I could see the faintest marks from Zianne’s rash for more than a week. After a few days fever-free, we let her go back to school.
After this whole ordeal, Micah and I were reflecting one night and he asked “Why don’t they teach you about this stuff in the baby classes you take during pregnancy?” I said it would probably freak out new parents too much to learn about seizures when their first child is still in the womb. Instead, we get to learn about it on the internet, so I hope our experience on what we’ve titled “the longest Valentine’s Day ever” helps you know what’s going on with your own child.
P.S. Always keep BOTH infant ibuprofen and acetaminophen on hand. That way if a fever starts getting dangerously high you can start alternating to give medicine more often. I’ve already had to do this again in the past month when Zianne had bronchiolitis… but that’s another story for another day.
I'm so sorry you had to deal with this! I teared up reading it. We had such a similar thing, yet thankfully it did not result in a seizure. But he did have the jerks that you mentioned every time he almost fell asleep, when his fever was scary-high. We called the dr and they said that was normal and not cause for concern, but I was SO worried about seizure. I was googling like crazy too! Especially b/c my brother had a very scary seizure incident as a baby. In our case, it started with a cold, then turned to an ear infection. Then we also had a terrible rash experience, but it was b/c it turns out he is allergic to penicillin so his antibiotics for the ear infection caused giant welts and hives all over his body. It was the worst three weeks of parenting thus far! Also happened in February! I love that you both prayed so intently over Zianne! I was literally spilling tears reading about that!! We did an awful lot of praying too, but I can only imagine how scary a 15 minute seizure must be! So glad everyone is okay now!!!
Oh Jen! I can't imagine what you & Micah were feeling that night š Emma had a 103-104 fever for a few days this past winter & I was on high alert for any febrile seizures, thankfully she never had one but my nerves were still a little shot until her fever started coming down! I am sobbing thinking about your comment of God equipping you both so perfectly for that specific time! He certainly is a faithful God!
I'm praying that sickness officially leaves your house after such long winter!! Love you & your family!
We learned the motrin/tylenol trick when Isaac had the swine flu a couple years ago and couldn't keep his temp below 103. His body has an awful time regulating temp even with meds. When we went to the dr they asked if we had been alternating and when we said no, we didn't know you could do that they looked at us like we were total idiots. How would we have known? No one ever told us that! Sheesh.
I'm glad to hear she's ok! I've never been easily freaked out or worried but man these kids change things.