45 Seconds = Forever

I have debated whether or not to write about Elena's recent hospital visit, but now that some time has passed and I have come down from crisis mode and able to actual process it all, I think it will help... so will a glass of wine in one hand, and a box of tissues within reach... here goes...

It began like any other evening, I went through the routine that I had 400+ days before, moving through each of the steps of bedtime routine with ease and not really any thought that it was any different than any other night. When I woke up at 12:45 am to hear Elena crying, that was my first hint that it was not going to be a typical night. Given that she is old enough now, and knows how to put herself back to sleep, I don't typically go into her... but something was quite right. The tone of the cry the sixth "mama" sense - something told me to go to her, and I will be forever grateful that I did (and I am sure that I will forever drive myself crazy wondering what would have happened if I hadn't).

As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and quickly walked into Elena's room, the strange cry continued. I had never heard her make this high pitched "eeee" cry before. I thought maybe she was having a night terror, which I had read about but never experienced, so I tried to rub her back to comfort her. She didn't respond to my touch, so I had my second clue that something was amiss and I quickly picked her up. The second her head hit my shoulder, I could feel the heat radiating from her and immediately figured out she must have a pretty high fever.

I quickly ran into our bedroom so I could lay her down on our bed, and strip off her clothes to try and cool down her body temperature and asked (aka yelled and pushed him out of bed) for Chris to go and get her some tylenol. Before he had even made it halfway down the hall, I could tell Elena was going to be sick and immediately picked her up and put her on my shoulder so she would be upright. She was sick and was still making this "eee" sound, so I decided to head to the bathroom where I could turn on the light and see what was going on and quickly walked that way, not stopping while Elena got sick once more before we made it to the bathroom. As I sprinted into the bathroom and faced her away from me (at this point I was trying to get some vomit in the toilet as it was currently vomitpalooza in the rest of our bedroom). As I did so, I could see her teeth were clenched and watched in horror as she vomited one last time and then her head lolled to the side and her body went completely slack like a ragdoll. I had no idea what was happening and as Chris had just come back into the bedroom I screamed at him to call 911.

I looked in her eyes and said her name to see if I could get any response, and all I got was a lifeless stare from dazed eyes. I immediately started hitting her back trying to knock anything loose that she may be choking on, but her teeth were still clenched and she wasn't making any noise, so I couldn't figure out what the problem was. Somewhere in the recess of my brain it clicked that she may not be choking, but all I could think were the thoughts that no parent could think. Something was wrong, something I couldn't see or help her with and something may take her from us.

Chris was shooting off orders about what to do if she was choking (via the 911 operator) and I sat down with her across my lap and put her on her side in order to see if that would help any - I had zoned  everything out at this point and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Her teeth were still clenched, her eyes were dazed, but her face was red - finally I decided I would just stick my figure in the back of her mouth to see if I could figure out what was going on, or sweep out anything that I may have knocked up from slapping her on the back. Shortly after that, I heard the best sound of my life - Elena cried out. It will seriously match forever in my mind the cry I heard when she was born.

Elena was unresponsive for 45 seconds and it felt like a lifetime.

By the time she came to, Chris was disconnecting with the 911 operator and you could hear the sirens approaching. Elena still seemed out of it and didn't respond the way I wanted her to, but she was breathing, she was blinking and she was still there.

I am still amazed at how fast the Chicago Fire Department and Paramedics were at our place, truly one of the benefits of a city. They checked her out in our condo and thankfully allowed us to take her down to the ambulance. In the ambulance her fever was 104... and at that point it felt cool to me so I have no idea what her peak temperature must have been.

The ride to Children's Hospital in the ambulance was surreal, I felt so pumped up with adrenaline, so realieved, yet still on edge as we didn't know what was going on. I held her close to me as they connected wires, ran her vitals and prepared to give her medicine if she had another seizure. Once we got to Children's, I finally let out a breath. At least someone would be able to tell us something... or so I thought. It took a few hours for Elena's heartrate to come down from the 190s to 130 and for her temperature to return to normal. I had flashbacks to her birth, staring at a stupid heart monitor again and praying for everything to be ok.

After hours of tests, all infections were ruled off, her vitals came back down and she was diagnosed with a febrile seizure. The ER doctors kept talking about how common febrile seizures are. Let me tell you, it didn't feel so common.

At 5 am, we finally made it home, I brought Elena into bed with us and we all finally had some peaceful rest. After two days she was fully rested and back to normal. She is such a trooper. I, on the other hand, have instituted nightly bed checks and have an obscene supply of fever reducing medication on site.