Owen Puts Gray in My Hair

What a week! Monday afternoon Owen was running a fever, so I gave him some medicine and it went down. I put him to bed around 7pm and when I went in to check on him, he was moving strangely in his bed. It look me some time to process what I was seeing--he wasn't having a nightmare, he was having a seizure.

At first I was strangely calm, I picked him up and walked out to tell Jim to call the medical duty officer at the Embassy and to let Tukkie know what was going on. Tukkie freaked out, though, and Jim looked up from the phone and said "Go to the hospital. Go! Go!" So at that point I basically freaked out too.

We jumped in a taxi and headed for the hospital, but traffic on Soi 3 was at a standstill. We managed to get across the street at least, and then Tukkie and I jumped out of the cab and started running for the hospital. The taxi driver was really nice--he loaned us his umbrella since it was raining and said he'd meet us at the hospital to get it back (and to get paid--I'd left without any change.)

By the time we got there, Owen was just lying in my arms limply. We were seen right away in the emergency room--Owen had a temperature of 39 Celsius (which I later learned was 102F), so they gave him ibuprofen and a sponge bath. We were admitted and basically, that was the next 24 hours--rotating high fevers, ibuprofen and sponge baths.

Owen was on an IV to keep him hydrated and that was difficult for a lot of reasons. When he was feeling good between fevers, he paced the length of his crib and once even managed to get the IV tubing wrapped around his neck. Yesterday morning, when he was feeling much better, he finally succeeded in pulling it out (despite assurances a nurse made to Tukkie that this was "impossible.") I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, blood was all over his little pink hospital pajamas, but the nurses were unfazed. I asked them to just take the whole thing out since by then he'd been hooked up to it for a long time. The doctor happened to be in the neighborhood and agreed that it could be removed. She really wanted Owen to stay a third night, but he seemed so much better and I thought we'd both get more sleep at home--finally she agreed to let us check out.

So, today, after a good night's sleep, we went back to the hospital for a check-up. Owen hasn't had a fever at all today, but we still have no idea why he had one in the first place. Roseola seemed the most likely explanation, but he doesn't have the tell-tale rash--we thought he might be getting it, but he's just really pale and everything makes him red. So, he's on antibiotics just in case. (Normally, I'm strongly against unnecessary antibiotic use, but Jim tells me this is not the time to worry about global public health.)

Apparently this type of seizure is just something that happens with a certain percentage of children when they have a high fever. We'll have to watch for it if he ever starts to get a temperature again, but there's really nothing you can do and no long term effects.

It's an incredible relief to have Owen home and feeling better, but now we're literally two weeks away from moving and I feel more unprepared than ever. Oh, well. I'm sure we'll get to Tennessee one way or another, and I did manage to do one thing today: I changed all my magazine subscriptions to Collierville, Tennessee.

Hopefully, this epic length blog posts makes up for the weeks of silence!