I tried not to worry too much at first. Mainly because with it being viral there was not a lot I could do. Antibiotics of course wouldn't help and my main focus was just keeping his fever down with the every three hour dosing of alternating acetaminophen and ibuprofen. Everything seemed fine until we sat down for lunch. I looked down and saw that he had chill bumps and was shuttering a little. I knew his fever was rising despite around the clock fever reducer. After a few minutes he started acting a little disoriented and actually called me "Daddy" twice. Chris had gotten called out earlier that morning. I immediately removed his food from the table in fear that if he were about to seize I certainly did not want him to choke. I called Dr. Melvin's office and they told me to go ahead and bring him in. He needed to have blood work to make certain we weren't dealing with the flu, step etc. Kal-el loves Dr. Melvin but he was completely lethargic and actually fell asleep only waking up briefly to cry "ouch Mommy" when they took his blood. :( :( :( Dr. Melvin assured me that it was a fever virus and was likely to last 3-5 days with the temperature elevating at night. Since most everything is viral I knew this is what we were most likely dealing with. He also told me that if his temperature got to the 103 or 104 mark that he was actually LESS likely to seize because the spike had already occurred. If your not familiar with febrile seizures then you wouldn't know that how high the temperature gets has nothing to do with the seizure. It's the spike or quick raising of the temperature that a young childs body is not yet acclimated to. Young children have easily triggered immune systems and often get higher fevers compared to adults(they haven't been in practice as long). Most seizures occur when a child's fever goes from normal to just above that very quickly. The majority of febrile seizures occur at 101 or 102. There is no way to prevent them since you can't control how fast the temperature rises. By the time you give a fever reducer the risk of it either happening or not has already passed. Often times a febrile seizure is the very FIRST sign that an illness is about to occur. I never minded seeing fever before I had a child seize from one. A fever is fighting FOR your body not against it. I really feel like parents should be educated on TWO things. The first is that febrile seizures are extremely common and secondly they cause no permanent damage, are not deadly, and children typically out grow them by four, age five at the latest. By that time, their bodies react appropriately to whatever illness they encounter and their little immune systems don't go into "overkill" so to speak. They learn that a few extra degrees of temperature will kill the virus and taking a hammer to a fly isn't necessary! Furthermore just as a fever is a reaction to an illness not an illness or a problem itself per say, similar knowledge can be applied to a febrile seizure. It's like a small shut down or blowing a fuse. The body over reacts to a threat. All similar to defense mechanizes. Sorry for the tutorial, but I get ALOT of unsolicited advice by people that understand it to a much lesser degree or not at all. Prayers are most appreciated. Dr. Melvin sent us home and told me to keep doing exactly what I was doing. He said even if it got higher at night that the hospital couldn't do anything more for the fever part then I was doing with alternating the fever reducers.
Once we got Kal-el home he played for a bit before his fever got the best of him again. Mom strayed with us last night and neither of us slept. Kal-el's fever climbed to 104 at one point but hovered at 103 the entire night. He felt so bad that he really couldn't sleep himself. To make matters worse I accidentally piggy backed the Tylenol dose so I ended up calling after hours. They assured me it was fine and told me to try not to get alarmed unless his fever hit 105. He's virus was playing out just like it was supposed to. The after hours doctor also informed me that the fever could continue to go up at night for the full 3 to 4 nights and dissipate during the day until it ran its course.
By the time the sun rose this morning his fever was back at around 99 to 100. It has pretty much stayed at that until now (4:00pm) as expected. I am just now dosing him. It's not always a good idea to treat a low grade, for one it couldn't potentially increase his seizure risk if I got it that close to normal and it spiked fast in the evening. Also a low grade is effective and doing its job. The viruses and bacteria don't like anything above 98.6 anymore than we do. My hope and prayer is that tonight goes much better and he continues to improve everyday so he can enjoy Christmas morning with his little brother. I miss Logan so much. I am VERY fortunate that I live next door to my grandmother and she has really helped me during this illness. She and Aunt Shane along with Poppa had a little spend the night party with Logan as the guest of honor last night. Hopefully his exposure was kept to a minimal before I got him over there. Positive thoughts that the little one doesn't get this awful virus. I'm also so relieved that my husband will be in tonight. Before I finish making my batch of candy cane cookie dough for Santa tomorrow night I wanted to share a couple of pictures. I'm not a fan of sharing or taking pictures of sick little ones ,however, I had planned to write a post on Kal-el's love for Pluto. I think these pictures explain it all. His stuffed friend never left his side and his mommy won't ever either!
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