Let me start by saying that we are all okay, but yeah, we did go to the E.R. last night.
Yesterday, Alethea was kind of cranky, but not so bad that I suspected anything was wrong.
Then last night at about 1:30am I woke to horrible screaming. I jumped out of bed and ran to Alethea’s room to find her holding on to the crib rail, shaking badly and shrieking at the top of her lungs. I picked her up and she calmed down for a few seconds and then suddenly she let out another ear-splitting cry and began trembling all over once again.
Needless to say, I was frightened. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced something as awful as holding my feverish, shrieking child who is convulsing in my arms.
I carried Alethea into our room, woke up Peter and told him I was taking Alethea to the E.R. So he got up and calmly started getting dressed. I was panicking, trying to figure out how to leave the house when I was holding Alethea, needed to get dressed and had a sleeping 4 month-old in the next room.
I once heard that during a crisis 10% of people act calmly and keep their heads, 10% freak out and make things worse and 80% just freeze and don’t do anything. I froze. “Help! I don’t know what to do!” I told Peter, “Should I call my mom?” (Yes, I’m 29 years old and I still want my mom when I’m scared.) Peter said, “We’ll just take Lydia with us.” Then he took Alethea from me so I could get dressed too.
We got out the door, into the car and started driving down the street. Alethea was in the back. She began calmly talking about how it was dark, how Daddy was driving Mommy’s car and various other topics. Suddenly I felt kind of silly for taking her to the E.R. I looked at Peter and asked, “I’m over-reacting, aren’t I?”
“Maybe, just a bit,” he said wryly.
But we were half-way there and I still was frightened by the shaking and screaming of 15 minutes earlier, so on we went.
We got to the hospital, checked in, saw the triage nurse, and were shown to our bed. Alethea did have a fever and elevated heart rate, but other than that, she was doing well. The doctor came in and diagnosed her with an ear infection and told us that the trembling was almost certainly chills from the fever, not a seizure since Alethea was making noise at the time. Apparently screaming is actually a good sign.
Alethea was given some Tylenol, a freezie pop and a prescription for antibiotics. After filling the prescription, we went home and back to bed.
So now all that remains is to wait for the bill.
My guess is that was one expensive freezie pop!
