Scary Moments

So it's been a long time since I've updated this. Sorry! But I did want to blog about what happened yesterday to us. Lately, Zach has been cutting teeth, and running a low fever whenever a new tooth is coming through. It's been on and off since about the beginning of February. But as soon as a tooth would break through, his fever would go away and he would be his normal, silly self again.

Yesterday, Zach was running another low grade fever. I wasn't concerned about it at all - I even took him to his Little Gym class in the morning, and he had a lot of fun. Anyway, as the day progressed, the fever seemed to get a little higher - but that was the only symptom - he was eating well, playing, etc. When Tyler got home for work, we woke him up from his nap and he ate a banana and drank some juice. Then we noticed that he felt pretty hot, so I took his temperature, and it was 102.7 - so I gave him Tylenol, and he snuggled up in Tyler's arm with his blanket in his mouth. About 3 minutes later, Zach took the blanket out of his mouth, and then his head went back and he started shaking. Tyler told me to call 911 right away. As I was talking to the 911 operator, Tyler was talking to Zach - calling his name, but there was no response. He was still shaking. Then his lips started to turn blue and his little hands as well. We were terrified. There was nothing we could do, and we seriously thought we were watching Zachary die. But after about a minute, he stopped shaking and started breathing again - albeit very labored. And he was still out of it - staring blankly at Tyler. After another minute or so, he finally started to cry and came out of it. Needless to say, we were so thankful to hear him cry and have him look at us again!

The paramedics came, and took Zach to WakeMed Raleigh - which has a pediatric emergency room. Luckily, by then, the Tylenol I had given him had taken effect and his fever was down to 100. Anyway, they checked him out and said he had had a febrile seizure. It's pretty common in children when their fever spikes quickly - basically their brain doesn't know how to handle it, so they have a seizure. But they are harmless and doesn't mean they will necessarily ever have another one. It sure was horrible to watch though for something so harmless. They tested him for the flu - it came back negative, and they said other than the fever, he looks incredibly healthy. So we left the ER with Zach gulping down a WakeMed souvenir sippy cup full of apple juice and pedialite. We didn't get home until about 1:30am, and we were still so wound up from the whole thing that we plopped Zach in bed with us, put in a movie and tried to go to sleep. We didn't sleep too well, but today, Zach is doing really well. You wouldn't know anything happened yesterday.

It just makes you stop and think about how quickly life can be taken, and how precious your children are. The love we have for this little person that we have only known for a little over a year can bring us to our knees when we are faced with the thought of not having him around anymore.

Anyway, I'll be keeping this updated more often, and hopefully it will be with much more upbeat, happy stuff. Here are some pictures from tonight - to prove Zach is feeling much more like himself :)