Isaac's febrile seizure
Jacob had his 15-month checkup a week and a half ago, when he was already over 16 months. It is so annoying, him being a whole month off the cycle, but the doctor won't let us play catch up because apparently the intervals between appointments are important for giving his immune system a break from the shots.
Despite Jacob's totally dumbing down on the eating, I was both shocked and pleased to find that he is still growing. He weighed in at 24 lbs 10 oz, in the 60th percentile, and is still on his track to future NBA stardom, stretching out to an unbelievable, 97th-percentile height of 33-1/2 inches. For fun, I found a tool on the internet to estimate your child's adult height from their current height measurements. If Jacob keeps going at this rate, this particular guesstimator suggests he will end up at 6'2" down the line. His poor "shrimpy" older brother is only supposed to top out at 5'11". I can't wait to see how Mutt and Jeff-y they look together in high school.
Jacob also got two shots, a combo with DTaP and some other thing, and then his first fantabulous MMR. I was really dreading the latter because I feared that my youngest child would now be subject to the mildly horrifying experience we had with Isaac after he got his MMR, when he was 12 months old. I never blogged about it because I didn't want to freak anyone in my family out, but somehow vaccination has come up quite a bit recently among my mommy set, and with Jacob's recent vaccination... well, now I feel like talking.
Flash back to over two years ago. The nurses who stuck Isaac with his MMR told me that it was terribly common to have some sort of fever one week post-shot, and sure enough, the boy came down with a doozy of a fever exactly one week later. I remember that his temperature made it up into the 102s, at which time everyone at the doctor's office tells you to go sit down and give the kid some Tylenol, but at which time every mommy instinct you have is just sure your poor baby's brain is to be permanently damaged by such stewing in its juices. After I called our doctor's nurses' line and freaked out on them a few times, since the Tylenol was doing nothing, one nurse suggested we give him a cool bath to bring his body temperature down. I rushed his limp, tired body up to the bathtub and did just that. He didn't complain. When I was done and dressed, I brought him to Dada so I could finish getting ready to head to our neighbor's house for dinner that night. But before I left the room, I noticed Isaac's lips and the skin around his mouth turning completely and unnaturally blue. His eyes rolled upwards, out of his control, and, in Dada's arms, Isaac's body gently began to shake. He was having a seizure, and I screamed as such at Michael.
Dada wasted no time at all and ran Isaac out the door and, not to the car and the hospital, but up the steps of the apartment complex to our neighbors' door, the ones who were expecting us for dinner. Because Dada is the quickest thinker in the history of the universe, he remembered that the couple who formed our would-be hosts were made of a Pediatric Endocrinologist and a Pediatric ICU Nurse, both at the Children's Hospital in Seattle. Our nurse-friend took Isaac and laid him on his side on the floor where he continued seizing for what seemed like an hour but was really only a few seconds. When he stopped shaking, his eyes rolled back into focus and he seemed to realize for the first time that he was in a different place. He cried for us to hold him.
We ended up staying at our friends' house way past Isaac's bedtime. After his seizure, he was utterly drained for over two hours and didn't want to move, eat, or even play with their daughter Claudia, his best friend in the universe. They were getting concerned for him and were about to tell us to take him to the ER when, as soon as his seizure had come, some sort of fog was lifted from his countenance and he began to run and play and scream and eat just like our good old Isaac. That was reassuring enough for the medical professionals on hand, who told us to keep a close watch on him overnight. We did, and nothing else ever happened.
Our friends told us at the time that febrile seizures in infants are really common, so common in fact that thye surmised every baby probably had them at one time or another, though obviously some may not have been witnessed. They said that these kinds of seizures are caused by their poor little brains not knowing how to handle a high fever, and cause no permanent damage and don't serve as an indicator for future seizures whatsoever. Basically, febrile seizures are harmless, but that was seriously difficult for me to believe at the time, after witnessing my child, my heart living outside my body, seizing comfortably in my husband's arms.
So, after all this reminiscing, what became of poor Jacob? Absolutely nothing. His DTaP combo shot was way worse -- his right shoulder swelled up to twice its size from bruising for three days following the shot, but then went back down and he was never the wiser.
As freakish as this sounds, I want to go on the record as saying that I am staunchly pro-vaccination. My babies will get every shot our trusted doctor recommends, because, as a semi-retired biochemist, I know that vaccination is arguably the best gift a parent can give a child. I realize that some children react much more severely to shots than mine have, and so I feel blessed that my babies' immune systems put up with this onslaught so early in life. They and anyone they share germs with will be so much better for it in the long run.
Despite Jacob's totally dumbing down on the eating, I was both shocked and pleased to find that he is still growing. He weighed in at 24 lbs 10 oz, in the 60th percentile, and is still on his track to future NBA stardom, stretching out to an unbelievable, 97th-percentile height of 33-1/2 inches. For fun, I found a tool on the internet to estimate your child's adult height from their current height measurements. If Jacob keeps going at this rate, this particular guesstimator suggests he will end up at 6'2" down the line. His poor "shrimpy" older brother is only supposed to top out at 5'11". I can't wait to see how Mutt and Jeff-y they look together in high school.
Jacob also got two shots, a combo with DTaP and some other thing, and then his first fantabulous MMR. I was really dreading the latter because I feared that my youngest child would now be subject to the mildly horrifying experience we had with Isaac after he got his MMR, when he was 12 months old. I never blogged about it because I didn't want to freak anyone in my family out, but somehow vaccination has come up quite a bit recently among my mommy set, and with Jacob's recent vaccination... well, now I feel like talking.
Flash back to over two years ago. The nurses who stuck Isaac with his MMR told me that it was terribly common to have some sort of fever one week post-shot, and sure enough, the boy came down with a doozy of a fever exactly one week later. I remember that his temperature made it up into the 102s, at which time everyone at the doctor's office tells you to go sit down and give the kid some Tylenol, but at which time every mommy instinct you have is just sure your poor baby's brain is to be permanently damaged by such stewing in its juices. After I called our doctor's nurses' line and freaked out on them a few times, since the Tylenol was doing nothing, one nurse suggested we give him a cool bath to bring his body temperature down. I rushed his limp, tired body up to the bathtub and did just that. He didn't complain. When I was done and dressed, I brought him to Dada so I could finish getting ready to head to our neighbor's house for dinner that night. But before I left the room, I noticed Isaac's lips and the skin around his mouth turning completely and unnaturally blue. His eyes rolled upwards, out of his control, and, in Dada's arms, Isaac's body gently began to shake. He was having a seizure, and I screamed as such at Michael.
Dada wasted no time at all and ran Isaac out the door and, not to the car and the hospital, but up the steps of the apartment complex to our neighbors' door, the ones who were expecting us for dinner. Because Dada is the quickest thinker in the history of the universe, he remembered that the couple who formed our would-be hosts were made of a Pediatric Endocrinologist and a Pediatric ICU Nurse, both at the Children's Hospital in Seattle. Our nurse-friend took Isaac and laid him on his side on the floor where he continued seizing for what seemed like an hour but was really only a few seconds. When he stopped shaking, his eyes rolled back into focus and he seemed to realize for the first time that he was in a different place. He cried for us to hold him.
We ended up staying at our friends' house way past Isaac's bedtime. After his seizure, he was utterly drained for over two hours and didn't want to move, eat, or even play with their daughter Claudia, his best friend in the universe. They were getting concerned for him and were about to tell us to take him to the ER when, as soon as his seizure had come, some sort of fog was lifted from his countenance and he began to run and play and scream and eat just like our good old Isaac. That was reassuring enough for the medical professionals on hand, who told us to keep a close watch on him overnight. We did, and nothing else ever happened.
Our friends told us at the time that febrile seizures in infants are really common, so common in fact that thye surmised every baby probably had them at one time or another, though obviously some may not have been witnessed. They said that these kinds of seizures are caused by their poor little brains not knowing how to handle a high fever, and cause no permanent damage and don't serve as an indicator for future seizures whatsoever. Basically, febrile seizures are harmless, but that was seriously difficult for me to believe at the time, after witnessing my child, my heart living outside my body, seizing comfortably in my husband's arms.
So, after all this reminiscing, what became of poor Jacob? Absolutely nothing. His DTaP combo shot was way worse -- his right shoulder swelled up to twice its size from bruising for three days following the shot, but then went back down and he was never the wiser.
As freakish as this sounds, I want to go on the record as saying that I am staunchly pro-vaccination. My babies will get every shot our trusted doctor recommends, because, as a semi-retired biochemist, I know that vaccination is arguably the best gift a parent can give a child. I realize that some children react much more severely to shots than mine have, and so I feel blessed that my babies' immune systems put up with this onslaught so early in life. They and anyone they share germs with will be so much better for it in the long run.
posted by Claire at 10:36 PM
1 Comments:
Wow...so much worry to look forward to with LP. Thanks though for sharing - I knew about running fevers and taking Tylenol - but never about the possibility of febrile seizures.
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