Febrile Seizure


One of my scariest experiences as a parent.  Nicholas wasn’t feeling well and was completely inconsolable.  I tried everything, but ultimately I put him in the Ergo and he was finally able to calm a little bit to try and get him to rest.  Just a few minutes after having him in the Ergo and sitting down he began to have a seizure.  It was my first time ever seeing someone have a seizure and to have it be my son was terrifying.  It resulted in my first phone call ever to 911 and having the paramedics come to our house.  The 911 operator told me to strip off his clothes and put him on a cold surface like the bathroom floor.  He had stopped seizing by the time the medics arrived just a few minutes later.

Randomly at toddler group, just two weeks before, two of his friends had just had their first febrile seizures.  Thank goodness those parents were talking about it as I was able to, with some confidence, figure out that is what was probably happening to Nicholas and stay pretty calm.  It was very odd that we all have older children the same age and this happened to 3 of us with our youngest children within weeks of each other and none of us had ever had it happen before.  The other kids did not come out of their seizures as quickly and had to be transported to the hospital so we were very lucky.

What I have learned.  Nicholas had a fever and being in warm clothes held tightly against me he got too hot.  I need to give Tylenol sooner and if he is held take off more layers of clothes.  Cooper continued to watch Daniel Tiger through the entire episode other than a small break to go let the paramedics in.  He seemed to not even notice the paramedics looking at his brother on the floor in the same room.  Later he asked if I was crying because I was scared, so he really is aware of everything going on even if his actions didn’t show it.  We have never been a family to give medications to our kids, Nicholas now gets Tylenol once his fever hits 100, no matter what.  We also learned that calling 911 can have paramedics at our house in less than 5 minutes, which is absolutely incredible and makes me very thankful for where we live.


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