Our son has been taking his medication for his seizures for a few months now and not much about our lives has really changed other than the medication having to be given every day. This was true until one night when he started looking a dazed and confused and then he fell. I got so scared when this happened, where is my first aid card? Why did I not pay more attention? Why was this happening now, he never had this happen before the medication?
There were so many things running through my head that I could not think straight. I knew I had to make sure he was not going to hit his head on anything so I grabbed a pillow and put it under his head. I remembered something about time; I was supposed to pay attention to how long this lasted. Wait I don’t remember reading anything about him throwing up! Well when he stopped convulsing he began throwing up and he was in such a daze that he did not even have a gag reflex. Trying to not throw up myself I did my very best to stay calm. I think I did pretty well for the most part, I am not going to lie I may have said one or two bad words but I did not mean to.
When the seizure was over we just sat there on the floor. He was so out of it, the best way I can describe it is a combination of way over tired and drunk. He could barely speak we later found this is called a postical state. Because this was his first convulsive seizure we did call 911 and went for an ambulance ride to the hospital. The hospital did a brief neurological exam, checked his blood and then we sat and waited for him to be back to normal. We were referred to our pediatric neurologist for a follow-up.
We did see the neurologist the next day and he said that because he had one convulsive seizure the likelihood that he had another was high. He went over the first aid again, told us when we should call 911, when we should call him and what medication we needed to give him if the seizure lasted over five minutes or came within a few minutes of each other. The good news was that this medicine should stop the seizure quickly, it was liquid valium. The bad news is that we were supposed to put it in the rectum of a child convulsing on the floor. Boy this keeps getting better and better.