It was just another weekday after work. Adrian fetched the kids home, and we met at one of our favorite dinner places. It was a quick spontaneous dinner date with our friends. The kids were all very playful after showering, just before bedtime. We noticed that Adam started having fever and fed him with 2ml of infant’s paracetamol.
Adam was the first one to go to sleep, which is normal in our weekdays’ routine. He is already sleep-trained, so I would feed him with milk, kiss him goodnight many times, leave him in his cot, turn off the light and leave the room. He would cry for 5-seconds, and then he would fall asleep.
That same night, I noticed he was making a lot of noises. He wasn’t crying. He was somewhat whining, and just making noises. At that time, it sounded cute really. But now that I thought about it, he was probably making the ‘I feel unwell’ sounds. We let him sleep between us because his temperature was not going down.
The next morning, we took him to a children’s clinic, and boy, we waited close to 2 hours! There were so many sick kids in that clinic. It was madness.
The diagnosis was a mild throat infection, so he was given an antibiotic and fever meds. He got the throat infection from me, because I was taking medications for it.
My mom took care of him while I went to the office. I went straight to fetch the kids after work because Adrian had football with his friends. My mom noticed that the medicines were not helping him as he was still having high fever the whole day through. At this point, I got a bit more worried than usual. I was also very exhausted because I did not sleep much the night before.
Things got worse when I got home.
I put him in his cot in the living room, and he didn’t move a muscle. I walked to the kitchen to put down the other million things I was carrying and still, I didn’t hear a sound from him. This was very odd, because he would always cry a bit. He doesn’t like to be in the cot. But there was zero sound. So, I kept calling out to him.
At this point, Sofia jumped onto the cot to play with him. But he did not respond.
I walked over to the cot and saw him lying on his back (the original position where I left him), and staring blankly at the ceiling, almost lifelessly. I immediately picked him up, and realized his body was hot, like on fire hot. Okay, I am obviously exaggerating a bit. But he was hot, and he was not moving like a baby should. He was like jelly hung on to me.
I kept calling his name the entire time, because to be honest with you, I was afraid he may have seizures or fall asleep and never wake up. I was worried for the worse. I called Rachel and asked if I should go to the hospital. Then, I called Adrian because by then he would have access to his phone already, and he rushed home.
I quickly took a shower and packed our hospital bags. My 2 toddlers at this point had not even eaten dinner yet. I was so caught up with the whole situation. Once Adrian came home, I was a bit more calmed down, and the kids ate a bit.
We waited for my parents to come over so they could watch over Alex and Sofia. I drove to the hospital first because I didn’t want to risk waiting any longer. Adam was completely not himself. He fell asleep in the car, and I find myself praying until we got to the hospital.
We got to the emergency department and told the nurse that we wanted to get admitted.
We waited for about 30 minutes for the on-call Paediatrician to attend to him. He took his blood for testing and did 2 nose swabs. Then, he did the whole needle thing on his tiny hand. Of course, Adam cried. If he didn’t cry, I would be extremely worried.
We couldn’t get to the room yet because they needed to be sure that it was not covid or any influenza. The hospital needs to strategically place the sick children, so they don’t get other kinds of bacteria from sharing rooms. We requested a private room, but it has 13 other patients on the waiting list. We ended up with a 2-bedded room, which was absolutely fine as well.
While waiting for the room, Adrian and Adam went to the emergency ward to begin on his antibiotic drip. Adam was sleeping on Adrian. It must have been a really tiring day for Adam.
When we got to the room, it was almost 1130pm. So, Adrian went home to my parents and the kids. My parents went home to rest too. Adam and I slept quite well that night. The nurse came in every 2 hours to check on his fever, and although his fever did not break, it was not dangerously high either. The next morning, Adam woke up and was smiling again.
His appetite was good too! I was happy for sure! After a while, he got tired and lay down on me for a good 30 minutes awake. After that, he slept from 1130am to 4pm. Adrian was working non-stop next to us, and I fell asleep after a heavy breakfast (nasi kandar heh).
Adam and I woke up and shared a peanut bun for our late lunch. Adrian had already left the hospital, to go home and get ready for the night duty switch. The initial medical report came back looking good, but his fever came back – which was odd. So, I guess at this point the doctor ran another test.
So, the doctor wanted us to stay another night to be sure. I went home and slept with Alex and Sofia. I was exhausted – emotionally and physically. The constant worrying is heavy.
The next morning, the doctor came with the complete more thorough medical report, but I was not there yet. Adam’s diagnosis was shocking and scary.
Severe Sepsis.
We knew that sepsis is not a good thing, but we didn’t know how bad it was until we googled it.
The normal level of Procalcitonin in a healthy individual must be under 0.05. Adam’s reading was 14.82! He was in the stage of sever sepsis or septic shock, which means the infection would have started attacking his organs, probably starting with his kidney.
But he responded well to the antibiotics, and his fever did not come back, and the doctor discharged us. There was no reason to continue staying if it means it’s higher risk of him getting other bacterial infections.
I thanked God that He has always been watching over us, over Adam. This is 100% God’s protection, because while the medical readings say that his organs “should” start failing, his organs turned out to be healthy and not damaged.
The image of Adam laying down lifelessly in his cot that night haunts me. It scares me every time I remember it. I remember shaking in fear while carrying him, because I was so afraid not knowing what to do if he goes into a seizure.
Don’t take risks with fever. You just don’t know what causes it, and it could potentially lead to something serious and deadly. Just don’t take any risk with fever.
We had a similar medical incident with Alex when he was about 3 months old. That was crazy. He survived RSV. We were in the hospital for a week! Read more here.
