Terrifying Would be an Understatement

So for once, this is actually going to be a relatively serious post. Yeah, I'm going to give one of those serious posts a bash. I started my blogging journey because I wanted to share the daily pleasures and struggles of parenthood, and this post definitely falls into that latter category. I wanted to share this story because I feel pretty strongly about this one subject. I don't tend to have much I feel genuinely passionate about. I'm not opinionated on climate change, or recycling, or team sports. Does that make me a bad person? I don't know. But recently I have become extremely passionate about one thing. Febrile seizures. 

Hospital after Seizure No. 1
January 2018

So, what is a febrile seizure? Very good question Mr/Ms Reader. I have taken the definition from the NHS website just for you!

 A febrile seizure is a fit that can happen when a child has a fever...

They most often occur between the ages of 6 months and 3 years.

They are relatively common, and in most cases, aren't serious.

Around 1 in 20 children will have at least one febrile seizure at some point.

So, did you know, they are super common in young children? Because I certainly did not. And I am definitely not alone. I am yet to find one parent who has heard of a febrile seizure, which is weird with them being so fr*ckin' common and all. It is this lack of education and awareness that has led me to write this post. And, as I like to do in most of my blog posts, I'll start by setting the scene.

It all started on New Year's day, 2018. Jack and I had had a pretty chilled night before, I don't think either of us had even stayed awake to see in the new year. We're pretty boring that way. Looking back though, two sober parents was definitely a good thing. So that morning, the boys were lazing about, and chilling in their jammies, whilst I got a well deserved lie in. We try and take it in turns. That's actually now something of the past because Cian now has 9am sports classes on both Saturdays and Sundays. That was some shoddy planning. Anyway, when I woke up that morning, I went to get breakfast, got showered, and then started getting Cian ready for the day. The plan was to visit my parents for a nice lunch. I took Cian through to his room to get him ready. We had a nice little outfit picked out. He got a lot of nice clothes for Christmas that I wouldn't dare let him wear into nursery, so I needed to get some use out of them. He was talking away to me and then all of a sudden he stopped. Right there in front of me, on the changing table, Cian started having a seizure.

He was completely unresponsive. His eyes had rolled all the way back into his head and he was shaking. It was awful. I was terrified. I screamed for Jack. I started to call 999 in a blind panic. My hands were shaking, I could not keep calm, I was devastated, and the tears kept coming. Jack kept it together and put Cian into the recovery position. But he noticed Cian had stopped breathing and his lips and fingers had turned blue. He thought Cian must be choking on something, maybe that's what was causing this response? He tried to look in his mouth to make sure his airway was clear, but he couldn't see anything. That's when he started to perform CPR.

Hospital after Seizure No. 2
November 2018

Our child was one year old. And in that moment we thought he was going to die. I have never felt so helpless in my entire life. We didn't know what was going to happen, and of course we were fearing for the worst. What probably only lasted 5 minutes, in reality felt more like 55 minutes. The wait was painful. I have never been so terrified in my life.

Finally, Cian regained consciousness. It was almost like Cian had awoken from a very deep sleep. He was so confused and  dazed, and thankfully completely unaware about what had just happened. He was exhausted and almost immediately fell to sleep. Jack cuddled him whilst we waited for the ambulance. We had absolutely no idea what had caused this. Had he choked? Maybe he inherited Jack's epilepsy? Was Cian ok now? He hadn't spoken to us yet, could he still speak? Was he still Cian? We were trying to make sense of what had just happened.

After a very long wait, the ambulance arrived and we were taken to hospital. The doctors kept asking us if Cian had been unwell. But he had been grand. He had been his usual happy self. No cough, no cold, nothing. The consultant made the decision to keep Cian in hospital overnight for further observation. This was to basically rule out anything sinister. I'm not entirely sure what they were observing. There were a lot of monitors and the whole night was a complete blur. The nurses kept coming round every couple of hours to take his temperature, and his heart monitor kept alarming every time he moved. It wasn't the best night sleep I've ever had. But, after a full night of observations, Cian was discharged. The diagnosis given was 'febrile seizure' caused by a throat infection. A throat infection he had shown absolutely no signs of.

Febrile seizures are caused by high temperatures, which are in turn caused by some other infection. For us though, this seizure had been the first sign that Cian was unwell. Apparently that is quite common. I don't know that because they told me, I know that because I googled it. Even after this happened to Cian, we were not really educated. We were not warned of the very real likelihood of this happening again.

Last week Cian experienced his second febrile seizure. This time he was in nursery. One minute he was playing with his friends, and the next he had fallen to the ground completely unconscious. Like last time, he was completely unresponsive. He immediately started to shake and turned blue. This was the second seizure this year. And although this had happened before, I still freaked the f*ck out when I got a call from the nursery. I ran out of work faster than Usain Bolt at the Olympics. 

Similar to the first time, Cian was taken to hospital for assessment. This time, the high temperature was put down to the onset of a throat and ear infection. And just like before, there were absolutely no signs that Cian was, or had been, unwell. Even the nursery said he had been his usual happy self.

Shamless photo opportunity -
Ambulance ride for Seizure No. 2

Every time I speak to another parent about febrile seizures, whether it's a friend or a colleague, or even a stranger in a coffee shop (I love a chat), no one has heard of them. It infuriates me. I don't understand why no one warns you. After all, isn't that what antenatal classes were invented for? To share information that you should know as a new parent? To share anything that is common in children? Really, this information would be so much handier to have prior to your child being in this situation. Before you jump to the most horrific of conclusions and fear for the worst.

If you take anything away from this post, please educate yourself on febrile seizures. If you go looking for the information it is there, we just don't know to look for something we haven't heard about. Please share this information with your parent pals. I'm a one man band at the moment (sorry, a one woman band for any feminists out there), so please help me spread this knowledge. If my "passion" for febrile seizures helps just one parent, this blog post will have done its job.