A Bit of a Scare

The weekend started out fine. We had plans to go camping-just for one night. Friday night we spent at home, getting everything together. I could tell my youngest, Ella, wasn't feeling well. It's hard when they are so little-she's only 20 months old- to tell what's wrong with them. All I knew was that she was very clingy and had little appetite. Friday night didn't prove much better-she was up from 12:30-3am, fussy, clingy, and not feeling well. I kept giving her Tylenol, because she felt warm. She has a history of febrile seizure, so we didn't want to go there again.
Saturday morning I had to make a decision. Stay home with Ella, or go with Todd and Emma to the campground. Ella seemed a little better, and while she did have a fever, it seemed manageable with Tylenol. So....we headed off.
A little more than an hour after arriving, Ella started to fuss again. She'd been having fun at the campground, helping Todd get the tent set up and exploring the site. She grabbed her blankie, but I took it from her because I didn't want her dragging it all over the dirt. When I turned around, she was laying on the ground. My first thought was that she was throwing a fit, but then I noticed she wasn't moving. One look in her eyes told me exactly what was happening. She was having another febrile seizure.
Ella's eyes were rolling back in her head, her breathing was irregular, and she was unresponsive to me. She wasn't shaking, just stiff. I started screaming and snatched her up, thinking we'd get in the car to seek help. All the time I'm yelling, "Call 911! Call 911!" We jumped in the van, but I decided that we didn't have time to go anywhere. Todd called 911 and we layed her back on the ground. While he kept her head turned, I was frantic and on the phone with the operator. I kept hearing a clicking noise in her throat and began to believe she was choking.
After about 4 minutes, the seizure stopped and she was in a sort of calm daze. It was at that point that the ambulance arrived. The perimedic grabbed her and put her in the ambulance, with me jumping in behind them. They immediately put ice packs behind her neck and on her stomach. They then started an iv- and that began a 1 hour stretch of screaming- from Ella. She was so miserable and so tired of being messed with.
I won't even get started on the hospital experience because it was sub-par in my opinion. I mean, come on. My baby just had a febrile seizure, brought on by a very high fever, and no one took her temp for 45 minutes! And at that point, it was 103.6 degrees. I can only imagine how high it was when she seized.
Well praise God, she's fine now. She had a doctor's appointment and we found out that she did not have an ear infection as the hospital had diagnosed. She actually has herpangina, a viral infection which causes high fever and blisters on the throat. We need to schedule an appointment with a neurologist, to be on the safe side, but the doctor says she's fine. The unfortunate thing is, she will probably have more before she grows out of this condition-around age 6. I'm just so thankful that she's fine. I was so scared and worried, but my baby's going to be fine.