My son was born four weeks early, and had a week long stay in the NICU right after his birth. Because he was a preemie, I was even more overprotective about his health.  We followed the scheduled vaccinations because of my health history, and things that I’m exposed to at my job.  But we couldn’t get away from genetics.

At sixteen months old, my son had a febrile seizure while in the car with my husband. They were on a road trip from Southern California to Northern California. Our son had no signs of being sick prior to the seizure.  My husband thought he was choking, and I advised him to call for medics via cellphone.  My son was coughing and gagging, because he had the seizure while he was in his carseat.  When the medics arrived, my son had a slight fever and they checked him out. After a bit, they were sent on their way to finish the drive.  A few hours later, when my husband had reached his destination, my son had another febrile seizure while napping.  My husband called 911, and my son was transported to the emergency room.

Those febrile seizures were the first of at least fifteen more to come.  My son had his last febrile seizure on New Year’s Day in 2009, he was 4 1/2. Usually children outgrow febrile seizures around age 2. Between all of those seizures we had a multiple ER visits, a few hospitalizations, and a neurology work-up at the local Children’s Hospital. We learned that my son has barely any symptoms before he gets sick. He may have a slight runny nose, and boom, a fever; His fevers usually went to about 102-105 degrees with minutes.

We also learned to watch the cues when he was getting sick.  If he was sleeping a lot, barely eating, or irritable, we knew sickness was coming soon.  He inherited my lovely health history of asthma/bronchitis which brought breathing treatments and a nebulizer also.  Our house is always stocking with Children’s Cold Medications, and when my son was smaller, rectal Tylenol.  We were able to get his fever done faster with rectal medications.  It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.

As a parent, you need to be like a Scout, always prepared.  I learned that if you are prepared for colds, sickness, etc., you won’t be running to the 24-drug store in your pajamas.  Sometimes, I feel like a pharmacy with all of the medications that we have in our house, but we always seem to have something for our ailments.  Even our pediatrician was pro-active, she gave us extra medication for the nebulizer.

I still can’t believe that we went through all of that.  My son has been relatively well for about two years now. I am so thankful for that.  The only time that we have seen his pediatrician in the past year was at his well-check near his birthday.

I think if parents are prepared and pro-active about their children’s health, some common colds and other illnesses can be avoided.

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