Saturday, August 11, 2007

calling 911

today was crazy. wade's parents are in town and sandy (wade's mom) and i went shopping. all day knox has been fussy, drooling, spitting up snot, and having a low grade fever. when sandy and i got home from shopping wade informed me that we were out of baby tylenol so i said i would go across the street to valu foods. i jumped in wade's car, drove a half-mile and got the goods. when i walked out of the store i heard an ambulance in the area and i did what i always do when i hear/see emergency vehicles. i prayed for the unfortunate people requiring such care. then i hopped in my car drove back to our neighborhood and as i pulled onto our street, i saw the emergency crews in the middle of the street in front of our house. i thought, i wonder what is going on at our neighbor's house. then i saw the emstat guy walking in direction of our lawn, heading to our house. then i lost it. i knew it was knox. i said, "what is going on?", quite hysterically. he just avoided my question and walked past into the house. walking seemed to lose it's optionness because my whole body was shaking. as i finally neared the porch, wade's mom flew at me from the driveway, where she had been waiting for me. she grabbed me and stopped me, which in hindsight, i think i am not too excited about because it made me think knox was dead and she didn't want me to see his lifeless body in my living room. she just held me and said,

"knox's fever jumped up quickly and he began to shake, so we called 911."

"no, no, wade doesn't let us call the nurse's line to ask questions, there is no way he called 911 unless something really bad has happened; is knox okay?"

"he is fine, he is okay."

"i need to go in and see him. i need to see him now."

so we go in the house and there are at least six emt guys in there surrounding wade who is holding knox. they are talking to him, but i am so stunned i don't even understand what they are saying. knox seems to be okay, weak, sick looking, but alive. after a few minutes i realize they are saying he had a seizure. i asked them if he was epileptic, and they said no, it was a febrile seizure (or fever seizure). they said when a child's fever jumps up very rapidly, when it spikes, it can cause their body to seize. i couldn't believe it. it seemed so strange to me that this was going on with my third child. i kept thinking, this can't be, i have two other children and they have never had this kind of thing happen. i haven't seen this, i haven't even really heard of it. it was bizarre. i realize i don't know everything about children, but with all of the other mothers i know, i just thought it was strange not to know much about this kind of thing. also, the emstats were saying this is super common. just odd.

when they left and it was only us, i asked wade how he knew to call since he never freaks out about stuff with the children, or at least not like i do. but then he told me that knox had stopped breathing, had been flailing his arms and legs and his heart wasn't beating. wade said it was the scariest thing he had ever experienced. i was like, now i know why God had me go to valufoods. the emstat would have had to come for knox and for his mommy who was hyperventilating. it was a little mercy that i didn't see this little episode.