Jacob's Pre-Halloween Scare

Last Saturday Jacob had a slight fever. It didn't seem unusual. We thought he might be teething because he wasn't acting any differently than normal. We decided that I would stay home with Jacob while Matthew went to the Fire Festival at the Houston Fire Museum with Tony. After they got home, I was holding Jacob and he jerked his arms up uncontrollably. He had a febrile seizure. I knew it was a seizure because Matthew had one last year. With Matthew it happened while he was eating and it happened from the corner of my eye. I thought Matthew was choking. I did everything in my power to clear his airway. When he seemed to gain consciousness I called 911 and we took the ambulance to Texas Children's Hospital. After describing what happened to the triage nurse, she said it sounded like a febrile seizure.

Back to Jacob--Tony called 911 and we had an ambulance at our door almost immediately. I knew to make sure Jacob was breathing and I held cold wet towels against his head to try to reduce his fever. Jacob was stable resting on my chest while the paramedics rolled us away on the gurney into the ambulance. Before we went to Texas Children's hospital the paramedics took his temperature and it was 103. They gave him a dose of Tylenol and his fever was reduced by the time he got to the hospital.

The Emergency Room appeared to be quite busy but we quickly got a room for Jacob and the doctor checked his vitals and then his throat. He was quickly diagnosed with Herpangina. This is a common illness in young children and involves a sore throat. The doctor explained that the illness is not life threatening but that the fever spike seemed to cause a febrile seizure. By the time we left the hospital about 3 hours later at 6:30PM, Jacob was acting normal and we had been instructed to give him alternating doses of children's Tylenol and Ibuprofen every 3 hours. The doctor also said that febrile seizures happen due to a quick rise in fever instead of just a high fever itself.

That night Jacob had a slight fever but we knew with the medications that he would have to ride out this illness for the next few days. At 3:30 AM the next morning Jacob yelled (it sounded like the yell of an adult) and he had another fever induced seizure. We called the ER doctor and they said to make sure his airway was clear and that he was breathing and if it lasted less than 5 minutes that we would not need to go to the Emergency Room. Similarly to the first seizure Jacob was extremely tired afterward and then acted normally after sleeping for about 3 hours. Obviously, Tony and I did not go back to sleep because we were on fever alert until around 8AM.

I originally started this blog to report fun happenings of Matthew and Jacob, however, I decided to record these occurrences with this illness because I know many friends and family members have been worried. I also want to remember some details. It is a week since Jacob's seizure and he is now back to normal. He is over his Herpangina and he no longer has a fever. We had him home with us until Friday. He went to daycare after he had been fever free without the aid of medicine for 48 hours.

The doctor said that febrile seizures do not mean that Jacob (or Matthew for that matter) will have more of these in the future or that he has epilepsy. Fortunately, the ER doctor's prognosis was correct--that he would be over the fever within 3-5 days and then he would be back to normal.