ER visit #4 (Kevin's Febrile Seizure)

We have now been to the ER 4 times. Once at Edith Cavell for Kevin's high fever when he was only a couple weeks old (I deliver him at Edith Cavell which is why we took him there).  Then Saint-Luc is closer to us so we went once for Ryan's kidney stone, once for Kherington's weekend ear infection and now once for Kevin's seizure.

Yeah, that's right, I said seizure.  It was pretty scary.  Here's the details:

Kevin woke up a little warm and had been teething so Ryan gave him some Tylenol before he left for work.  We met up with some friends at the nearby sand park.  The kids played for awhile like normal.  Then a school group (well, daycare since it was a holiday) showed up.  Kevin was at the bottom of a tunnel slide and a much older kid came barreling down and the collided.  He was okay enough to cry his way across the playground to me.  After that he was pretty cuddly.  He just wanted to be held (not normal Kevin at all).  When he did get down he wanted me to go with him.  Not his normal self, but understandable considering the collision and teething.

We stayed at the park for a good 4 hours (the rain held out for the most part).  When we got home both kids were exhausted so we all climbed in my bed for a nap.  I had my arm around Kevin.  He was sleeping next to me and I was getting a couple things done on my laptop.  He kept jerking out of his sleep then going right back to sleep.  Then suddenly his body stiffened and he started shaking.  His eyelids were half opened, with his eyeballs rolled back and shaking too.  Seizure are pretty scary and even more so when you're holding the person who's having it and have no idea what is going on.  I scooped him up and sat on the edge of the bed holding him, then walked down the hall and sat on the couch trying to think of what to do.  He finally stopped, lay still for a second then groggily opened his eyes.  I called Ryan and told him to get home.  I wasn't sure what to do so I gave him a couple spoonfuls of yogurt (maybe not the brightest move...I'm not sure why, but I did) and some infant ibuprofen.  I kept him awake even though he just wanted to cuddle up and go back to sleep.  Ryan got home, I woke Kherington up, grabbed our passports and Kevin's health info book and we hurried to the hospital.  Ryan went in with Kevin while I did the paperwork.  One of the first things the lady said to me was that I should have called an ambulance and if there was a next time that's what I should do.  Not exactly what I needed to hear at the time...and it didn't help that I couldn't even think of what number I would have called...for anyone reading in Belgium you would call 100 for an ambulance.

I switched with Ryan and he took Kherington out to the waiting room (no kids allowed in the ER area).  They hooked up an IV to his hand, drew blood, took a urine sample and had me give him a syringe of medicine...and all this while the young doctor (that's what he called himself...pretty much not a nurse but the doctor's assistant) was asking me questions in broken English.  They said it would take an hour get results.  The normal doctor came in and told me they weren't very worried about Kevin since he had a temperature when he had the seizure.

I passed the message on to Ryan who said he would drop Kherington off at someones house and come back.  I didn't realize how literally he meant that.  When he came back I asked where he took her and he responded, "It worked out perfectly.  I had just gotten Kherington out of the car with her stuff and was knocking on the door when they pulled into the drive way."  I was like, "You called on your way over, right."  Nope.  I am very very thankful to have friends (and new friends at that...they've only been here a month) who will take our kids at the drop of a hat.  The mom took Kherington and sent Ryan with some food (best chicken skewer ever, grapes and water...all of which came in handy at the hospital).

Ryan got back.  In total we waited 2.5 hours for the results...not the 1 hour we were told.  While we were waiting for the results, Kevin decided he was done with the little stickers they put on to hook him up to the monitoring machine and peel them off himself.  He was tired (he cried a lot when they were poking and prodding him and crying makes you even more tired) and wanted to leave but other than that beginning to be normal Kevin again.

Everything was fine.  They said he had a very very very minor viral infection.  I also learned that the seizure was a Febrile seizure that is cause from a spike in temperature.  So it's not so much how high the temperature is, but how fast it goes up.  There is no long term damage associated with this kind of seizure and they are fairly common in toddlers.  A friend told me to think of the seizure as the body resetting itself.  Much scarier for me than for him.

After they told us the results, they said the hospital needed to keep him for 24 hours (overnight), they were cleaning a room for us and someone would be down to take us up.  Well, 2.5 hours later someone finally came.  Let me tell you, Kevin felt fine at this point and just wanted to leave.  He had his shoes and socks on and was wandering the halls trying to find the exit.

When we finally did get up to the room, it was huge and had an awesome view of Brussels...I could even see the Atonium in the distance.  Kevin and I watched the cars for awhile which he loved.  Ryan had left to get things for staying overnight.  He is pretty awesome and had no problem staying with Kevin (side note - I don't like hospital.  I can deal fine with a lot of things, but medical problems are not my strong suit because I don't understand anything and feel so helpless.  I really didn't want to stay and am thankful that Ryan didn't have problem with it).  I'm not sure what happen in the US, but one parent stays if a kid has to stay overnight.

I went to pick Kherington up.  We hadn't even gotten out of the driveway and Kherington was asking when she could go back to play (you think she missed us?).  While we'd been at the hospital she got to run wild with 3 little boys at an amazing house with a huge yard an new toys, go to one of the boys soccer practice and run around there, have spaghetti and chips for dinner and stay up late watching the Octonauts.  I'm definitely not as fun as exciting as they are...maybe they'll rub off on me :).

Back at the hospital, Kevin got hooked up to some fluids for the night.  During the night he pulled out the IV....I guess he was really done.  They didn't make him put it back in.  Ryan and him wandered the halls from 2am - 4am, facetimed with family and Kevin downed the entire container of grapes (only food he'd eaten).  By 11am the next morning Ryan called to tell me I could come pick them up.

If you saw Kevin that day you would never have known anything had happened.  I am very thankful that everything is okay.  I hope it never happens again.  On the bright side, Ryan, Kherington and Kevin are all in the system at the Saint-Luc hospital if anything else does happen.