Continuing on about febrile seizures ...

There's a genetic component to convulsions that come with fever, so someone in Sam's bio background must have been familiar with them. Mark and I were not, so were completely unprepared for what was the most frightening moment of our lives.

Somewhere in the back of my mind there was a flicker of awareness, but the sight of our then 18-month old son going rigid, then twitching spasmodically, then turning blue as his breathing stopped completely sort of drove any complacent hey-I-think-I-know-what-this-is thinking straight out of my mind.

Mark didn't even have that little bit of cushion. My husband, former British bobby and fully trained for emergencies, freaked. He was holding Sam at the time, trying to console the feverish little guy, and could do nothing when the seizure hit but scream, "He's dead! My son is dead!"

I've always been pretty good in a pinch, but this time my reactions could have done more harm than good.

"He is NOT dead!" I shouted, grabbing Sam, placing him on the bed where I began CPR.

Calling an ambulance in Seychelles is a practice in futility, so we jumped in the car and drove, hell for leather, over the hill to the hospital in Anse Royale. On the way, I phoned a friend who happens to be a doctor and heard the words, "febrile seizure" ... and a lot of others meant to calm me down.

"Not dangerous" and "Stop with the CPR, already!" were the biggies, although I couldn't believe them, not with this semi-comotose baby on my lap and a twenty minute drive ahead of us.

Very fortunately, the doctor on duty was from a family where febrile seizures are experienced and understood. When we rushed through the doors of the hospital, shouting and crying and frightened to our toes he was not only doctor calm, he was dad calm. He asked the questions he needed to ask and resolved that Sam was not only not about to expire, but actually in no danger at all.

Whew!

Details about this condition in the next post ...