This weekend did not start off right. At 2pm on Friday I experienced the worst thing a parent could ever experience. As I walked into my son’s room 3 ½ hours later, confused that he was still sleeping, I walked into a nightmare. As I approached his crib my son was having convulsions that kept him from being able to sit up. I quickly grab him to have his head fall forward without an ounce of control. He was shaking so badly, and to see my helpless babe without the ability to hold his head up was a very weak moment for me. “Cooper, Cooper?” I cried as I tried to get a response from him. “Cooper, look at mommy, Cooper what’s wrong?” Without being able to gain a sign of response, I quickly thought maybe he was dehydrated. I tried to nurse him, and as he was lying in my arms his eyes kept rolling in the back of his head. Finally, he looked at me and started to cry. I quickly called the doctor as this started to subside; had it not, I would have called 911. The doctor told me to come in immediately.

 

On my drive to the doctor, I tried calling my husband to find out he was in a meeting. I was panicked; unsure what to do besides rush him in immediately. Let me tell you me deep love/hate for doctors, as I had to wait an hour just to be taken back to the room and an additional half hour once taken back; my deep loath for doctors began to sink in. My husband was on the phone with me fearful of the news we were about to hear. He finally couldn’t handle it anymore so he left work early and joined me right after the appointment. The doctor told me what I witnessed was probably the aftermath of a seizure. This is what I didn’t want to hear. I don’t know why a 14 month old baby would be having seizures, something else is than wrong. I had to stop my thoughts in their tracks hoping and praying that it was a ‘one and done’ deal; no more would happen. They couldn’t perform any tests while at their clinic, they would have to send us to the children’s hospital, where there he would stay the night and be monitored. Now the Doctor didn’t think we needed to do this yet. His words to me sounded numb; “he won’t die from seizures, so if he keeps having them we need to monitor him and find out why, but until than I don’t know that it would be the best decision to send you directly to the hospital without having seen it myself.”

 

My questions were endless, my frustration towards the doctor showed, I wanted answers, not “what ifs.” The only possible other solution was that it could be a virus, causing a seizure for some unknown reason. Neither of these answers were beneficial to me. He told me as the night progressed Cooper needed to gain full mobility back otherwise that would be a sign of something else because side effects of seizures are temporary. So all night we had to watch Cooper and evaluate his “wobbliness” so to speak. Now once my husband met up with us, he definitely noticed Cooper was a bit slower; he had fallen 4 times and knocked his head each time. Poor guy!

 

We decided against taking him in that night as he was still playing and was thoroughly tired. Now Saturday was pretty normal other than him being completely exhausted and having a big bruiser on his cheek from hitting the edge of the coffee table the night prior. Sunday on the other hand, he woke up crying which is never a good sign with him. He is the baby that will play in his crib for an hour before you truly need to get him. He’s refused to be put down all morning and was definitely not his normal Cooper Man self. We took off for church anyways, hoping for a change in scenery to put a smile on his face. There happened to be an all church barbeque following the service with some great entertainment that we wanted to attend.

 

Side note: We have been having sewer problems since we moved into our new house, now we didn’t know this until 2 weeks ago, but apparently this has been an ongoing issue for quite some time. Due to this information I decided to call the gentleman who did our home inspection as we had taken his word for all the activity under the house or lack thereof. He was supposed to be coming out Sunday at 2pm to evaluate this concern.

 

Due to this information we had to leave the barbeque early and get Cooper home for a nappy-pooh. Unfortunately, along with all of this “garbage” going on, for lack of a better word, as my husband was holding him he commented that Cooper was burning up. Burning up was an understatement, as we gave him Tylenol and even though that’s a fever reducer his temperature was still 101. He was so flushed and cranky. I laid him down for his nap while trying to juggle calling the advice nurse and talking to the home inspector at the same time. My eyes were getting watery, my emotions were worn on my sleeve, and everything together made me turn on the faucets in my eyes. I was crying out of concern for my child and the fact that we have a terrible sewer smell we’ve been dealing with for quite some time that financially wasn’t in our cards. $4500 was the staple price three companies had given us for this issue. Prayers that the home inspector takes responsibility for this and fixes it would be a huge blessing. (We still have heard).

 

The advice nurse finally called me back an hour and a half later, thankfully Cooper had been sleeping. This conversation was quite long. For liability reasons she had a lot of “advice” without being able to tell me exactly what to do. She knew my concern, knew I didn’t desire to take him to the hospital overnight if there truly wasn’t something big going on. She also knew I would pick up in a heartbeat and stay overnight as long as we needed to make sure my son was healthy. Torn between being an “over reactive parent” or an “unconcerned parent” was my struggle. She advised I watch him for a few minutes at a time if he slept longer than his normal nap considering that’s when we experienced the aftermath of his original episode. Since my son has been so restless lately while sleeping I figured I couldn’t get away with this. Luckily he woke up after 2 ½ hours. This time around, his temperature was 103. I’ve never seen Cooper so lethargic and never want to see it again. This active little boy can’t sit still, until now. He laid on me for quite some time just crying and helpless. He would also get restless and rollover and lay on the floor on his blanket and could not stop crying. He was so uncomfortable yet I was utterly helpless. This broke my heart and I wished I could do anything, anything in the world to take it away from him. Now with this response, the nurse did tell me that it actually doesn’t matter the degree of the fever, the bigger concern is if they are uninterested in their toys and you can’t hold their attention. This is exactly what was happening.

 

An hour later, my husband went to put on his jeans and pack a bag to head out to the hospital. Within those couple minutes we walked to the bedroom Cooper decided to try and play with a toy with a lot of intermittent crying. This behavior was a good sign, not lying on the floor and actually moving around was a huge blessing. Now I was concerned with his lack of fluids and food intake, but knew if we could get him to move around a bit, he would be bound to get thirsty. As the night progressed he got a little bit better and his fever dropped to 102. Enough to the point I felt okay with putting him to bed hoping for the best.

 

We put him in our room to monitor him and unfortunately he was so restless that every time he rolled over, sat up for a drink, and whimpered I was wide awake. I actually got no sleep, but given the circumstances I was totally fine with this. Tired, of course, but my baby was more important.

 

This morning he woke up with a fever of 100 degrees, I decided if the fever didn’t break we would definitely head in today no matter what. Well….by 1:30 when he woke up from his nap, the fever had pretty much broken. YAY!!!! The immediate concern was now alleviated, but the concern that my son still may have suffered a seizure still remains. We do have to watch for ANY neurological signs that may be slightly off to keep track if there is a bigger issue going on. The doctor did say it could be one and done, but we won’t know until more time passes and praying for no reoccurrence. I feel better knowing he’s getting his personality and strength back, but hoping for a full “recovery.” Praying for protection of Cooper and his health and that he will continue to grow and be a strong, healthy little boy.

 

I love you Cooper John Cook! I’m thankful I get to stay home with you; you are the light of my life.