the beach

It has been ages since I have written anything. Isn’t that one of the cruel ironies of blogging, that when you have time to write, nothing is going on and you have nothing to say. When ALL OF THE THINGS are happening and requiring much thought and analysis, you don’t have even a few minutes to write anything.

Accordingly, you are owed one of those omnibus update type posts.  This is not that.  This is the post where I write about one very bad thing that has happened.

The Bumby is very sick, again.

On Friday he started to seem out of sorts. No appetite, a desire for extra napping, that kind of thing. We had planned to go out to Fire Island, where we have a beach house, and so we did. Friday night, he felt warm.  This kid kind of gets fevers at the drop of a hat, so we gave him some Tylenol and went to dinner. He perked up and ate some bread, and charmed the waiter by saying Thank You every time he brought something to our table.  It was all very uneventful.

Saturday morning, he was still warm. We don’t have a thermometer at our beach house, so I don’t really know how warm is warm, but he was… you know. Warm.  We gave him some more Tylenol and discussed our plan.  We decided to take him down to the beach because it is actually cooler than the house, and he could play in the water. Even for having a fever he was behaving pretty normally. He was energetic, and happy.  Plus he kept saying “Walk, walk. Beach, beach.” So off to the beach we went, promising ourselves we would stay only an hour.  He played. He tried to eat small crustaceans. He filled a bucket with sand, dumped it out, and filled it again. He drank “wa-wa” the entire time.  Then he crawled up into my lap and asked for milk, so I nursed him. And he fell asleep, just as our designated beach time was up.

After much hemming and hawing, we decided he needed the sleep and it would be a disaster to take him home and risk waking him up and ruining his nap when he obviously needed one, because he was a bit sick. I put a towel over us to keep the sun off of him. It wasn’t hot under the towel, honestly. I swear.  I get hot very easily, and I was comfortable.  After 20 minutes or so, Bumby made a meowing sound and picked his head up.  He looked at me, and he was terrified.  His eyes were all wide and his mouth was open. Just then, his arms started shaking and he collapsed down onto my chest. “Something is wrong with Bumby!”

I was too afraid. I handed him to my wife so she could look at him, and he went totally limp. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he was completely non-responsive.  We started running to the boardwalk to take him to the clinic in our town.  As we got off the beach, he stopped breathing and started turning blue. I ran ahead to get the doctor, and our friend called 911 while my wife ran behind me, holding the limp and non-responsive Bumby.  I thought he was dying.  I was actually fairly sure that he was dying.

By the time she caught up with me at the doctor’s office, Bumby was responsive, the proper color for a baby, and wet.  My wife had a guy watering his plants hose down Bumby.  Apparently, what happened was a febrile seizure.  This is a harmless event and happens to some kids when their fever shoots up too fast.  Frankly, I don’t care if it’s not unusual, and I don’t care if it’s harmless.  I never, ever want to see it happen to my little guy again.  It was terrifying.  Regardless, we were med-evac’ed off the island and rushed to the ER.

Even though he was hot, and feverish, we were told not to give him water in case he had another seizure and threw it up and aspirated. After no less than five attempts, they decided they could not give Bumby an IV to re-hydrate him. He is too small, too fat, and his veins are too little.  Five times, I held down my screaming baby and let them stick him with needles for no reason.  Finally, hours later, I was allowed to nurse him and give him water and apple juice. It took several hours to collect urine from him because he was so dehydrated at this point. His fever hovered around 104. Which I know, because they shoved a thermometer up his ass on an hourly basis. He refused the Tylenol, so guess what they did?  Yep, they held him down and forced it.  He was choking and spluttering the whole time, and after they were done he promptly vomited up not only the Tylenol but the potato chips and 4 oz of water I had convinced him to eat and drink.  So then they gave him the Tylenol by suppository.  It was a total nightmare, and in the end they did nothing for him.  I hated the hospital, all of the nurses, and one of the doctors.  There was a PA that I liked, and she was the only thing that made the visit even remotely bearable (that, and the fact that the EMT liked Bumby’s real name so much that she and her wife are going to name their soon-to-be son after him).

He is still sick. He has had antibiotics for an ear infection, which maybe caused the super high fever, but maybe did not.  In addition to the ER visit, he got a trip to the pediatric urgent care and his regular pediatrician. They can’t find anything wrong other than the ear infection, but it’s been six days now and his fever is still in the 101 range (I have been calling him the Heatmeiser, because he’s Mr. Hundred-and-one).

So, what’s wrong with Bumby? No one knows.  Did this happen because we stupidly took a feverish baby to the beach? No one knows.  In any event, I am partly glad we made the decisions that we did, because if we had gone home or not gone to the beach in the first place, he would have been napping in his crib. Which means he in all likelihood he would have had the seizure anyway, only he would have been alone instead of in my arms. I might not have even known it happened, because the whole thing was basically silent. This realization has caused us to sleep with Bumby for each of the last five nights, so that we can be sure he is breathing and alive at all times.  So far, so good.

We are supposed to go back to the beach this weekend with some friends. Obviously, if Bumby has even the hint of a fever, we are not doing that. But if he doesn’t have a fever… I still don’t know. I am scared to have him someplace where we can’t easily get to a good hospital. I am just sort of scared in general.  I haven’t gone into work all week because I am afraid that he will take a turn for the worse and I will be an hour away. If I knew what was wrong with him I might be able to deal, but I don’t and I might not ever. He might just be a kid who gets scary-high fevers from nothing or anything.

Anyway, that’s it. That’s the very bad thing that has happened. Is happening, whatever.