Down a familiar road

We had a very scary night last Friday.  Scary and yet familiar.  Jace had a febrile seizure.

While it was so unexpected at the time, we weren’t astonished that it would happen to our little boy.  Our oldest son Jude had two of his own febrile seizures when he was 14 months old and again at 17 months.  Jace is currently 17 months old.

Febrile means: relating to fever.  We didn’t even know that Jace was feverish until after his seizure – I think that’s why it caught us so off guard.  We took his temperature soon afterwards and it was 102.5 degrees, so not really freakishly high, but high enough, apparently.

Jace had been having a very normal day.  He’d taken a nap from about 10:30 am – 1 pm, which was very typical.  A few hours after his nap, he began to get a little cranky and fussy.  Josh had come home early from work that day – which he had been planning all week.  Jace wanted Josh to hold him and Josh was more than happy to do so.  Jace napped for awhile longer and then while he was sitting quietly on Josh’s lap, he began seizing.  I was in the same room with them and Josh alerted me to it.

Josh and I learned a lot about febrile seizures after Jude had his first – the doctors told us it could happen again and prepared us for what to do.   I remembered to put him on a flat surface – which for us at the time was the floor of our front room.  I asked Josh to begin timing it.  We knew that if it lasted over three minutes, we should go ahead and call for help.

What does a febrile seizure look like?  It’s freaking scary, for starters.  My boys experienced nearly identical episodes.  There was a blank, unconscious stare.  There  was tiny gasping sounds from the mouth, and because of an inability to swallow, little bubbles forming in the mouth.  Both hands and arms rhythmically jerked downward from a very tense little trunk.  Likewise, both little legs jerked in rhythm.  It’s so odd, the involuntary, compulsory movements – like he just need to get them out.

And then, after only 90 seconds, those jerky movements stopped on their own.  We were very thankful for that!  Two different friends of mine who had the horror of experiencing a febrile seizure in the first place, had the added misfortune of experiencing the prolonged seizing of their child.  We’re talking from 10 MINUTES up to an hour!  In light of their experiences, I feel very fortunate.

After the seizures, both of my boys were just wiped out.  Completely limp and listless for a time.  It takes so much out of them, the poor dears.  This time, Jace bounced back and was on his feet walking probably an hour later, if not before.  And he wanted to eat!  He wanted to drink.  He was still a sad little boy fighting that fever and all, but he was ok.

Febrile seizures are harmless.  They are completely terrifying to watch, but if I could choose a disorder to have (if I HAD to pick one), I’d choose these darn seizures.  Yes, it’s a weird statement, but they are short-lived with no lasting results, I can get over the scare factor because health is restored so soon.

Jace continued to have a fever all night Friday – which made it difficult for me to sleep – and for most of the day Saturday.  Saturday night, his fever broke.  Sunday morning he  was cranky again, but cool to the touch and by the afternoon, he was back to normal.  I’m still unsure of what caused Jace’s fever in the first place.  The kid didn’t have symptoms – not even a runny nose.  He still doesn’t.  He DOES have about 4 teeth coming through at once, which explains the crankiness, but I have been told in the past that fevers aren’t directly related to teething, although as a mom, I tend to think they are correlated in some way.

We didn’t take Jace in for treatment because the seizure was very typical in length, in movement (it’s a bad sign if they are just one side or portion of the body), in age, in fever onset… in every possible category.  I just got off the phone with Jace’s pediatrician’s office and they confirmed my thoughts – they don’t need to examine him unless his fever returns, then they would want to get to the cause of the fever.

For now, we are enjoying health in this household.  Happiness and harmony.