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Sunday night was the most scary night for Adam and I. Let me preface this with Ethan is okay. We wanted to let all our family know the whole story and hopefully won't have to repeat the story too much. Read on. . .

Saturday night I came home from work, picked up Ethan and thought immediately, "ooh, he's hot." Took his temperature and it was 102. He had no other symptoms. Adam said he had a good day, so I didn't think too much on it. He had also cut a top tooth that day. Gave ibuprofen. Put him to bed and he went to sleep just fine, like always. He slept all night long. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Before going into work, I checked on Ethan. His temp was 101.8. Gave more ibuprofen. Fed him. Laid him back down with some toys.

Ethan had a good day Sunday. He was active, eating, sleeping, peeing, pooping. Everything was normal except for some continued fever. Because of all this, I thought it was just viral. Just a temperature. It will pass in a day or so. Adam started giving doses of tylenol along with the ibuprofen alternating at around 1 pm. At 3 pm, Ethan's temp was 98.5. Hooray it broke, we thought.

I got home a little after 7 and Ethan was awake and hanging out with my mom and Emma. I picked him up. He didn't feel hot. A good sign, I thought. Took his temp. 99.7. Gave a dose of tylenol just in case. Got him ready for bed, fed him and he went to sleep like always.

About five minutes later he cried out a little. I remember thinking, "gosh, that's weird. If he wakes up, it's usually around 2 AM, never right after I lay him down." Adam had just brought in some dinner so I decided to let Ethan cry a little. He wasn't screaming crying. It was just that little whimper cry. So, I scarfed down my sandwich and five minutes later, I went into his room to check on him. I went to touch him and immediately knew something was wrong. He was tremoring all over. I turned on the lights and he was white as a sheet with blue lips. I ran him out to the living room while yelling at Adam to call 911.

I laid Ethan on the couch and started stripping him down. I was not thinking fever since it was just 99.7 not thirty minutes ago. I was thinking in my head as I looked at his rigid abdomen and legs and tremoring arms and cyanotic lips, "what did I miss?? what did I miss??" Ethan was breathing but was definitely in distress. He never lost eye contact with me. That was always purposeful and his pupils were normal. His breathing sounded like exaggerated grunting. I kept thinking, because the body only compensates for so long, he's going to stop breathing. So I stayed right by him, ready to whisk him to the ground and start CPR.

EMS got there and put a non-rebreather on him and we did not linger. We immediately got into the ambulance. On our way to medical city, his temp was 104 with the tempanic thermometer. Ethan melted two ice packs with his body heat on the way. It took the whole ambulance ride to pink up and once we hit the doors of the ER, he was pink and resting well in my arms.

His rectal temp at the ER was 105.8. I don't know why it spiked like that. But they said that was common for a febrile seizure. They happen not necessarily with how high the temperature gets but how rapidly it rises.

So now we just had to figure out why the temps. Roseola? He had no other symptoms beside fever. He was an active little boy all day. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Initially, they though ear infection but it wasn't that. The initial urinalysis came back as UTI but I thought that didn't sound right. Little boys don't typically get those. So, I dismissed it.

His fever broke again in the ER and he was 100% on room air and we went home around 3 AM. Ethan got IM shots of Rocephin before leaving.

The next day, we followed up with our pediatrician's office. Urine culture came back positive for e.coli. So yes, a bladder infection, after all. Nothing respiratory, nothing ear related.

Our goal is to keep fevers down, ten days of antibiotics and renal sonogram after that. Like I said, little boys don't typically get bladder infections because their urethra's are longer than little girls'. So it could be 1) a total fluke or 2) an anatomical defect where Ethan's urine travels back up his system to his kidneys and he gets infections.

We will see what the renal sonogram says. It is scheduled for August 1st.

Some things we don't know the answer to: Why it happened? Will it happen again? Was it a true seizure or was he in this pre-ictal phase, fighting the seizure? Is this just the works of the bladder infection? Is it something more?

Blood cultures will be back in a few days, as well.

Thanks for all your love and prayers.

Ethan is active and playing today. Last temp 98.5

Adam just read this post and says it's very analytical but that's what his family will probably want to read. :-) It goes without saying that it was the most terrifying night of our lives.