In A Fever

Maggie’s fine.

That’s the most important part of this whole story.

Maggie woke up on Wednesday with a runny nose and instead of having a low-key day, we headed out the door for play group and some errands. On our way home from play group she threw up in the car, which I attributed to her being car sick. That evening she again threw up, but still wasn’t running a temperature.

On Thursday she woke up with a bit of a fever and a still runny nose. We gave her some medicine and prepared for a day of laying-low, which we did. We ate tiny bits of fruits, drank tons of fluids and blew her nose a million and one times. She took a very short mid-morning nap and by the afternoon she was doing heavy yawns again so we curled up on the rocking chair to read a few books with her special blanket. I decided, after doing some reading, not to give her more medicine and let the fever do it’s job. Because a fever can sometimes be a good thing…

After she fell asleep I decided just to hold her since she was sleeping so well and I wanted her to sleep as long as possible. Probably 30 minutes later I noticed that her arms and legs started twitching and her eyes were open. I thought (hoped) that maybe she was having a bad dream and sleeping with her eyes open. When she didn’t respond to my voice or even the shakes I was giving her I started to freak out. Her face was blank and her eyes were not focusing.

I promptly got up, found my phone and called 9-1-1.

I also took about a split second to look for my keys (which I’m pretty certain were in my purse on the washer, but if they weren’t I wasn’t going to take time to look for them) and didn’t see them. So I ran outside to our neighbor’s house across the street.

By this time Maggie was like a sack of potatoes and still not responding to me in any way. I was on speaker phone with the 9-1-1 operator and the frantic voice, that turned out to be my own- wasn’t really intelligible. I was pounding on our neighbor’s door, yelling at the operator and rocking Maggie at the same time…sitting down, kicking their door.

I noticed that my phone disconnected and left it in our neighbor’s yard to chase down a passing car. They didn’t see me. For a brief moment I laid Maggie down in the middle of the street and quietly talked to her. I’m not sure what I said to her, but her lips were turning blue. I have never heard someone scream so loud…only to find out it was my own voice screaming for help.  Even thinking about this now brings me to tears – sobs, really. If I’ve ever had an out of body experience, this was one of them.

A trillion and one thoughts flew through my head, all at the same time: Is she dying? What if this was my only chance to be a mother and this is how it ends? What the HELL just happened? Come on, Maggie. Why isn’t anyone coming down our street? HELP US. Help me. help her. just someone help. 

I ran to our other neighobor’s house, an elderly lady with a friend over doing her hair. I found myself holding Maggie over my shoulder – still not responding or holding on to me really – yelling frantically to give me her keys or call 9-1-1. For a split second she stared at me before she turned to find her keys.

At this exact moment a gentleman pulled into her driveway, he must have seen me running down the street or heard my guttural scream moments before, and asked if I needed help. I ran to his car and asked (or told) him to take us to the hospital. I don’t even remember the 3 minute drive to the hospital. When we arrived, horns honking, we were met by some EMTs. By this time Maggie was blinking with her huge eyes and holding on to me. An EMT took her from my arms and she cried out for me.

I was still frantic.

They immediately diagnosed her as having a febrile seizure, which I had never heard of. Apparently they’re common in infant and toddlers when they’re temperature rises at a quick rate – over a short period of time. In the future we’ll have to treat her fever in hopes that it doesn’t happen again.  They also determined the source for her fever, an ear infection. After giving her some tylenol and doing some other quick tests, I called Barry (on the phone in the hallway…not a lot of privacy, but my phone was still in Bob and Julia’s yard) and left possibly the worst message on his phone that he could ever get.

“We’re at the hospital. Maggie had a seizure. Please come…Bye.”

We sat in a tiny room and were visited by nurses and doctors alike. I realized I didn’t have any shoes on and had zero identification.

Barry arrived, wild eyed and frantic but calm once he saw us. Maggie went into his arms and babbled at him over and over saying “Mama rock” and “Mama out,” we finally figured out that she was telling him about what happened. We were rocking and then we ran outside. She’s a smart cookie and I was beyond happy to see her perk up a bit.

Once Barry was there, I felt myself deflate a bit. I slipped out to go to the bathroom and came back to the room to find them sitting with their backs to the door and I let myself cry in the corner for a few minutes.

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After giving her some medicine for her ear and for her fever, they let us go home. I held Maggie in my arms for the short drive, all three of us not really sure how to process the previous few hours. By the time we got home, the medicine was kicking in and Maggie was perky as ever. Barry left to retrieve my phone, fill the prescription we were given and pick up some sushi.

Mags and I curled up back on the rocking chair that we’d been sitting on only a few hours before and read a big pile of books. She chugged a cup of milk and bossed me around a bit. It felt so good. We sat around the table after Barry got back and watched Maggie pound a roll of sushi…the most she’d eaten in almost 24 hours.  Suddenly she was back and roaring around the house wanting us to follow and play with her.

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A couple days have passed since I wrote everything down and that horrible day. Maggie has returned to her spicy self and is busy running the household again – in fact, she’s outside playing in the snow with Barry. 

I called the gentleman that gave us a ride to the hospital to thank him and got a chance to talk with his wife as well. Turns out they live about 8 houses and 2 streets away from us and his wife heard me screaming from inside her house. She was running outside of her house to find me just as her husband was pulling into the driveway – he had seen me, but thought I was just happily waving at him. Once they put it together he raced back to pick me up. He said that he drove us to the hospital in a minute and a half. Aside from me being extremely thankful for his boldness in driving us to the hospital, I was struck at how amazing it is that his wife heard me from inside of her house, so far away from where I was screaming. Also, I am also thankful that our house is so close to the hospital. 

Yesterday Maggie pulled Jean de Brunhoff’s ‘Babar The King’ off the shelf and we flipped through the pages. I grew up listening to Babar stories, so I was pleased to be able to look at the illustrations and read the words when we’d stay long  enough on a page to do so. However, as we read the end of the book it struck me how much of Babar’s sentiments reflected my own in terms of our recent scary event. Babar was going to bed at night and reflecting on his dreadful day and was trying to figure it out, when he came to the same conclusion that we had:

We had forgotten that misfortune existed.

Babar then has a dream where he is haunted by anger, stupidity, misfortune, sickness, discouragement, ignorance and fear. But then he hears a far off sound of graceful winged elephants ushering in happiness with patience, courage, perseverance, learning, work, intelligence, hope, health, and joy.

I found so much comfort in the illustration and a small part of me stopped feeling so heavy about what has transpired. Life has moved on. 

And remember?

Maggie is fine.

That’s the most important part of the story.