Benjamin Penguin

The question is: “Would a mother go through any length – no matter how painful in that moment – to make sure her child was ok?”  And the pain that I speak of is having my chest fat rhythmically bitten (very hard, I might add), by my son as he was having a febrile seizure.

A little back story? Sure. Ben has had a fever since Thursday. It has hovered around the 102 mark for the past few days, but yesterday afternoon it rapidly climbed to about 104 degrees. We called the doctor and were told to keep an eye on things. Prior to that, we had packed up and were about to take Ben to the emergency room, but he seemed so tired and Adam was concerned about putting him through the craziness of the ER, so we agreed to give Motrin and monitor the situation. I was laying in bed with Ben and watching the Simpsons when he started to make these funny little jerking movements. I thought he was being a little monkey and so I was not really thinking much about it. At one point, however, he sat up and then he just zoned out. It was like he was just not there with me and nothing I could do was breaking this daze, even though I tried to get his attention. I knew instantly that he was having a febrile seizure because, seriously, I’ve read every book about health and medicine and the body. I’m a hypochondriac. Medical references are my Bible. So I quickly scooped him up and held him upright with his body tight against mine and his head against my chest and ran to call 911. As I was dialing, he began to rhythmically bite my chest quite hard. Again, it was clear that he was not monkeying around and play biting. He had no control over it and just kept biting and biting. It hurt like hell, but I was so worried that he would bite his own tongue that I just kept letting him bite me. As the call was coming to an end, and as I heard the sirens in the background, Ben started to come to and I could see that he was reacting to me again. All told, the seizure probably lasted only a few minutes. But it has been the most terrifying few minutes of my life to date. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt that helpless in my life.

We had the ambulance take us to the ER and Ben got some fluids and some Tylenol and a dosing schedule and by the time we left last night, his temperature had dropped to 99 degrees. He had a very fitful night of rest, but I think we all did. And my chest is killing me. In case you were wondering, it does, in fact, hurt quite a lot when your fat is repeatedly chomped upon. So now I am all freaked out and I check on him every few minutes. It’s almost like having a little newborn again – when he was a wee little one, I was constantly checking on him when he was sleeping to make sure that he was still breathing.

So, that was pretty much an adventure that I could have lived without. But Ben seems to be doing better temperature-wise. We’ve kept him dosed on both Tylenol and Motrin and will continue to do so today. I’ll be drinking  a Valium and Vodka milkshake later, so I should be recovering nicely as well.