Right, well I’ll start at the beginning and try and bring you all up to date with everything.
Well, no doubt you all ready know about the febrile seizure incident that happened on 22nd June. Basically she had a bit of temperature the day before whilst we were at Balmoral Beach with Grandma and Grandad but it only seemed to last about an hour. We took her to the doctors anyway as we were a bit worried. But whilst she was there, see seemed to go back to her normal happy self, playing with the toys in the doctors waiting room. The doctor checked her over, and said her temperature was fine. I mentioned to her about the recent ear infection she had had and that she might be getting an eye infection (there had just been a bout of conjunctivitis at daycare in the week), so the doctor gave me a prescription for some eye drops, but told me not to get them yet – only when and if an eye infection develops.
Then the next day, 22nd June, we were having a late lunch in Kirribilli and she started to shiver. I had never seen her shiver before, so we were a bit worried and tried to warm her up. She just didn’t seem right though. I thought her lips looked slightly purplish – but I suppose you get that when you are cold. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and seemed quite lethargic, so I put her down in her cot when we got home. She went off to sleep for a little while but then didn’t seem to settle, so I brought her into our room and lay down with her on our bed. I put the heating on meanwhile as I thought it was a bit cold. She went back off to sleep.
About 10 or 15 minutes later, I sat up and moved some of the quilt next to her back to prop her up, and to make sure she didn’t roll off the bed. I was just staring at her when all of a sudden she started fitting. I screamed for Damien and picked Mia up and tried to sort of stop her as I didn’t realise she was fitting at the time. Her eyes were rolling around the top of her head and suddenly her lips went blue. I think Sue came in at this point. Mia seemed to be losing consciousness and I really thought she was dying. It was horrific. I felt for her heart to see if it was beating and by this time, Damien had called for an ambulance and was getting advice from the person in the call centre. I think I even tried to give her CPR at some point, but somewhere in the back of my head I think I remember reading that you aren’t supposed to press too hard on a babies chest and to only use two fingers.
We were told to cool Mia down, so I took off her socks and her top and I put her in the recovery position as by this point, she had stopped fitting and had started to moan a bit. She was really sleepy and I think she must have been very frightened. We all calmed down a bit and the ambulance arrived quite shortly after that. They gave Mia a little oxygen mask and we were taken out to the ambulance and taken to the Royal North Shore Hospital. All in all it was a very frightening experience.
Mia started to come back to her normal self when we had been at the hospital for a few hours. The nurses in the A&E ward took her temperature constantly and Mia was put on an intravenous drip but it took four attempts to get the canula in. So poor little Mia had bruises from the needle attempts on both her hands and on the inside of her elbows. She was falling asleep by this point as it was about 10 or 11pm. So she didn’t cry too much. They also did an x-ray of her lungs and then it was discovered that she had quite a bad chest infection. So they admitted her to hospital overnight.
We didn’t get up to the children’s ward until gone midnight. It was dark and everything was very quiet. We were led to a dark room at the end of a corridor where a little cot was in the room in place of a hospital bed. We had the room to ourselves thank god. The nurse gave Mia some antibiotics and we were left to it. Only one parent was allowed to stay the night with Mia, so I slept on a squeaky sofa bed next to her and Damien had to go home. I don’t think either Damien or I slept that night.
Monday 23rd June
Mia woke up early the next day and seemed really hungry, so I called for the nurse and asked her for some weetbix for Mia. Mia wolfed it down. Then the hospital breakfast came and Mia had that as well but obviously they only provide food for the patient, so I had nothing to eat, actually I think I had a few bites of Mia’s bread roll with jam – I’m sure she didn’t mind!!
I was due to start work that day, so I had to call up and explain to them what had happened and that I wouldn’t be coming in today. They were very understanding about it all.
Damien arrived at the hospital quite early bringing some food and drinks with him. We still needed to get a urine sample from Mia, so she had to be nappyless whilst we waited for her to have a wee (and me catch it in a pot!!) but at about 9am “In the Night Garden” came on the television and Mia was soo excited she rushed to the end of the cot and had a poo all over the bed! Great.
We waited for the doctor to come and see us. He checked Mia over and said that we would have to stay in for another night and that they were just waiting on a few test results etc. In the meantime, she was to be given antibiotics every 5 hours. They didn’t know if Mia was contagious so some woman brought Mia some toys as I don’t think we were allowed out of the room. So we stayed in there all day.
Then I think they must have decided that Mia wasn’t contagious as some little boy and his mum was put in the same room as us at just before 7pm. I was trying to get Mia to sleep and it was extremely difficult as there was all this noise going on. She eventually went to sleep and I went to bed too.
Tuesday 24th June
After another night of hardly any sleep for me, Mia woke up at about 7am. I took her out of the room and up to the playroom at the end of the corridor so as not to disturb the little boy in our room. I chatted to the other mums in there about what had happened to their kids whilst we waited for breakfast to be delivered. There seemed to be a lot of kids who had had febrile seizures and I overheard a doctor saying something about last year loads of kids had flu but this year loads of kids had had really high temperatures. It appears that febrile seizures are quite common and there is no long term lasting damage from them.
Breakfast arrived and so did the doctors a little while later. He told us we could go home at 5pm that day. So for the rest of the day we just played with the other children in the playroom and in the outside area. They had little wendy houses for the kids to play in and Mia absolutely loved them. So when we have the outdoor space we will get her a little house to play in. I went out of the children’s ward for the first time today and went to get me and Damien something to eat and drink. I had no clue where I was though, as I had not been out of the ward since Sunday, let alone outside.
Since then, things have settled down. Mia has been fine and is back at day care and I have started my new job.
The girls at the day care centre were really worried about Mia and had missed her. One of them even told me that Mia was her favourite and had been a bit upset about hearing of her being in hospital.
We enjoyed the rest of the time that Grandma and Grandad were over visiting us. We spent a couple of nights in the Hunter Valley whilst they were here and Mia enjoyed playing with some ducks at one winery. We did all the usual tourist things, although I had to work for most of the time they were here, so Damien was the hostess with the mostess.
I noticed last week, whilst I was tickling Mia, that she now has another tooth. So that makes 13, only seven more to go. Mia has also just had an eye infection that she picked up from the day care! So we’ve had to try and attempt to administer eye drops. Not an easy task with a wriggling toddler who doesn’t want the eye drops anywhere near her!
Mia is also talking a lot more and a lot clearer. She shouts for Daddy when she wants him to see something. She said woof woof yesterday when she saw a dog. She is just learning new words all the time and constantly amazes us with how much she actually understands. She can say Granny, Grandma and Grandad - although not always very clear but I understand what she is trying to say. When I asked her "Where's Mia?" the other day in the bath, she pointed to herself. She even managed to put her own shoe on yesterday. Also she knows where her nose, mouth, ears, eyes, knees, toes, head, belly, elbow and feet are! She points to them all when you ask her where they are. She is becoming more prolific in throwing her spoons on the floor though when she is eating. We just can't get her to stop this. I can't think of anything else new that she has done recently but I'm sure I'll let you know when I do!!
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