Baby J has inherited from me, the nasty habit of getting seizures when he has a fever. I've discussed seizures before, this post is about taking babies to the ER. As a nervous mom who lives 5 minutes away from Medical City and has a kid with medical insurance, it doesn't take much for me to decide to take J to the ER. We have taken him for fever/seizure 3 times, and for diarrhea countless times. Our family is there so often the floor nurses at the pedia area and at the ER pediatrics section know us already.
All this experience has taught us how to prepare for a trip to the ER. If you can't bring all of these when you first get there (emergency and all), get them immediately afterward or have someone bring them for you. SOme of these are for convenience and others are to save you money.
1. With every trip to the ER make sure you have with you (no matter the reason for going):
-a feeding bottle or sippy cup: if he is there for diarrhea they will give him rehydration salts and they don't supply feeding bottles
-a change of clothes for the baby: if he has a fever they will give him a sponge bath and he will need to change afterwards
-a washcloth: spongebaths in the ER, if you don't have one they will charge you for one
-disposable diapers even if your kid wears cloth: among other reasons, they use disposables to wrap around the area where the IV is tapped
- drinking water, snacks for the baby (cheerios are good food and entertainment): it's annoying to have to run to the store when someone gets thirsty
- sandals/shoes, socks: it will be tough getting your child to stay on the bed, they will be restless so having shoes will give them some mobility, the socks are primarily for the cold
2. Before the nurse puts in the IV tube, have her give you some time to decide where they will put it. They can put it on a foot or on a hand. If your baby walks, foot is a bad idea. If the iV will be on a hand make sure you pick the non-dominant hand (read: the one he doesn't use to play with the ipad). They do these things in a rush and don't consult the parent. If you end up at the hospital for several days the baby will be miserable if his right hand is all tied up.
3. Bring paracetamol and other medicine with you everywhere. Nurses know to ask if you have your own medicine. It is much much cheaper to bring your own than let the hospital supply something as simple as paracetamol drops.
4. Ask your resident/doctor incessantly if the IV drip can be disconnected. As soon as we knew Baby J was safe, we asked his doctor and he said it was fine. It bought J back a lot of comfort. The IV was pointless once his fever broke. They will just keep the tap open through a Heplock but the tube and bottle goes.
5. Bring chargers for your electronic devices. These are mostly to keep baby entertained.
6. If you plan to sleep at night, ask the nurses and housekeeping staff to minimize their visits to your room in the middle of the night to the absolutely necessary ones. I swear it is much harder to get well at a hospital because they just don't let you sleep! They are in there every 15 minutes mucking about. If you were not able to sleep at night, consider putting a sign on the door in the morning indicating you don't want any housekeeping visits. Housekeeping folks are noisy, they do their work in the morning so they are confident about knocking loudly and screaming "housekeeping!" when you and the baby are trying to catch up on sleep.
Lastly, sleep next to your kid on the bed if it's possible. They feel so much better when they are being cuddled and sleep very soundly when next to mom or dad. Also if you have a toddler it'll help avoid nasty falls from the bed :)
Showing posts with label high fever. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high fever. Show all posts
Monday, May 6, 2013
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Baby seizure
Baby J had the most terrible week of his life.
On Monday he developed a slight fever (38C), so I stayed home with him all day. The fever went up a little in the afternoon so his dad and I drove him to Medical City to get checked. They told us to give him paracetamol every 4 hours and sent us home, it's too early to tell what he has. So home we went. Baby J played a little, nursed, and took a nap in my arms. In the early evening he opened his eyes, stared blankly out and didn't move. We called his name and he didn't respond, I shook him and he didn't respond. His eyes were open but his body was limp and he was completely unresponsive. In a panic, we ran to the car. While opening the gate and getting the keys, my husband was holding J, and he started to seize. His leg stiffened up.
I held my child's limp ragdoll-like body in the car on the drive over to Medical City. His eyes were open but his eyeballs were rolling to the back of his head. Prayers poured out of my mouth and I was in a state of hysteria, it seemed, for the 3 minutes it took us to get to the ER. There are no words to describe how it feels to have the thought in your head that it is entirely possible your kid won't make it to the hospital in time, or he makes it there and there is nothing they can do. The closest word to describe it is "horrifying" but that doesn't even describe half of what it felt like.
We pulled up to the ER and I screamed for a doctor, she came and I told her he is completely unresponsive. Skipping the triage section we ran into the pedia beds and found an empty one.
When I laid J down he had started to move. He whimpered and I gave a big exhale and thanked the Lord that he was beginning to respond. They were hooking him up to the little baby heart-jumper-thingie, when he started to come to and full-on cry. It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. I had never been so happy to hear him cry.
In all we stayed in the hospital for 4 days. It was no fun for Baby J. More details on the hospital stay in a future post. In the end he was diagnosed with Roseola or Hangin Tigdas as they call it. The seizure was brought on by the spike in temp. The tendency to get seizures with fever is genetic, as a child I would go into convulsions when I get a fever. They are called Febrile Seizures and can happen to a small percentage of babies (up to 6 years old). Generally they do not cause long-term damage to the brain, but they are terrifying to see.
If you are one of the unlucky ones, and you see your child going into a seizure, just remember to put him on his side and don't try to feed him medicine. Don't put anything in his mouth. WHat you do is you wait. If it lasts more than 3-4 minutes then drive to the hospital. After the seizure, try to bring his temp down with a tepid sponge bath.
It's horrible that there is nothing to do but wait and watch it take over your child's body, but that is all that can be done. A generous friend whose child had seizures told me that it helps to think the child will not remember the seizure and will not remember any pain if they felt it at all.
On Monday he developed a slight fever (38C), so I stayed home with him all day. The fever went up a little in the afternoon so his dad and I drove him to Medical City to get checked. They told us to give him paracetamol every 4 hours and sent us home, it's too early to tell what he has. So home we went. Baby J played a little, nursed, and took a nap in my arms. In the early evening he opened his eyes, stared blankly out and didn't move. We called his name and he didn't respond, I shook him and he didn't respond. His eyes were open but his body was limp and he was completely unresponsive. In a panic, we ran to the car. While opening the gate and getting the keys, my husband was holding J, and he started to seize. His leg stiffened up.
I held my child's limp ragdoll-like body in the car on the drive over to Medical City. His eyes were open but his eyeballs were rolling to the back of his head. Prayers poured out of my mouth and I was in a state of hysteria, it seemed, for the 3 minutes it took us to get to the ER. There are no words to describe how it feels to have the thought in your head that it is entirely possible your kid won't make it to the hospital in time, or he makes it there and there is nothing they can do. The closest word to describe it is "horrifying" but that doesn't even describe half of what it felt like.
We pulled up to the ER and I screamed for a doctor, she came and I told her he is completely unresponsive. Skipping the triage section we ran into the pedia beds and found an empty one.
When I laid J down he had started to move. He whimpered and I gave a big exhale and thanked the Lord that he was beginning to respond. They were hooking him up to the little baby heart-jumper-thingie, when he started to come to and full-on cry. It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. I had never been so happy to hear him cry.
In all we stayed in the hospital for 4 days. It was no fun for Baby J. More details on the hospital stay in a future post. In the end he was diagnosed with Roseola or Hangin Tigdas as they call it. The seizure was brought on by the spike in temp. The tendency to get seizures with fever is genetic, as a child I would go into convulsions when I get a fever. They are called Febrile Seizures and can happen to a small percentage of babies (up to 6 years old). Generally they do not cause long-term damage to the brain, but they are terrifying to see.
If you are one of the unlucky ones, and you see your child going into a seizure, just remember to put him on his side and don't try to feed him medicine. Don't put anything in his mouth. WHat you do is you wait. If it lasts more than 3-4 minutes then drive to the hospital. After the seizure, try to bring his temp down with a tepid sponge bath.
It's horrible that there is nothing to do but wait and watch it take over your child's body, but that is all that can be done. A generous friend whose child had seizures told me that it helps to think the child will not remember the seizure and will not remember any pain if they felt it at all.
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