BFC

No it's not Best Fried Chicken or Best Friend's Camote

It's Benign Febrile Convulsion.

It was early morning on Friday when I lost sleep as our Little Ate Cassandra woke me up for a diaper change twice already.  She's having diarrhea. Well, it was on Wednesday that she vomited almost six times as she's having an upset stomach.  We called her pedia and she prescribed some medications already.  On Thursday morning she's ok already so it was only during Friday that her stomach rumbled again.

During our power breakfast, the two kids were done eating ahead of us so they went inside the room and watched some videos.  After a while, Ate Champee went out of the room with a calm voice saying "Cassandra fell."

We thought it was nothing since we didn't hear Cassandra cried. But then... 

Horror!

Cali found Cassandra lying down on the side of the bed thinking she was just playing... A second look made her realized she's already having a seizure and then began to not move anymore.  Her face turned purple (not in a cute way) already.

We panicked!

We thought we lost Cassandra.

The sequence of events that followed were so fast... in fact it's super duper fast that I realized I was only wearing this while we were in the emergency room.

Dare to be rare? Well that's rare, wearing this sando in a public place, feeling macho :)

I'm not sure if it's just me, but this is one thing I dread for my kids to have... an IV.  But it's inevitable in Cassandra's case as she needs to replace all those lost minerals and fluids in her body.  Later on she was diagnosed with benign febrile convulsion or BFC.

This is what I got from Mayo Clinic's website:

"A febrile seizure is a convulsion in a child that may be caused by a spike in body temperature, often from an infection. Your child's having a febrile seizure can be alarming, and the few minutes it lasts can seem like an eternity."

Yes indeed, it's like eternity.  I remembered having a hard time some days back with Cassandra.  That it's hard to comfort her when she's crying and that she's too active (more active than Ate Champee when she was the same age).  But when this happened, I realized that all of those things were just petty.  And that I wouldn't mind being woke up super early in the morning by her cries, or playing with her even if I'm super tired after work.  It doesn't matter anymore.  I just want her back up and healthy.

A Parent's Pain
It was painful to see her had seizure, but then I wonder how those parents cope up with their life when they lost their kid.  I had a privilege of talking to a dad last weekend where he lost his eldest many years ago.  As they say, kids should be the one burying their parents and not the other way around.  I've experienced losing a friend, and a mom.  But I would say, nothing would compare to a parent's lament when they lost a child. When he was telling me the his story, it was as if it was just yesterday.  But one thing that struck me was that, he needed to stand up and move on because his two other kids need him.  I admire him.  And I admire all those parents who were able to rise up to the challenge of facing life with that tremendous battle scar.

Then we had visitors...

Ate Champee made a Get Well Soon card for Cassandra.

Three things I learned from this experience:

1. Always keep a nice shirt at hand :)) - Boy Scouts training make sense.  So to save myself from public scrutiny, I need to always be prepared. A good shirt in the car would at least cover me from another trip to the emergency room. But hey, those perfect sandos makes me feel at home.
2. Nevermind the petty things. - The people closest to us need our time, attention and love. If small things bother us, we lose the opportunity to make wonderful memories with our loved ones. I remember Covey's First Things First... It's ok to live an unbalanced life, people should take precedence more than your planner.  When we fend off our kids, spouse, friends, officemates or just about any person because we need to get back on track with our schedule, we lose living life to the fullest.  After all, why do we do the things we need to do... Is it because of money? Or because of our loved ones?
3. Monitor - We thought Cassandra just had a mild fever. Next time, at the onset of any fever, we need to monitor her temperature and prevent it from rising.  Plus remember to follow the doctor's advise on the onset of another seizure... don't panic and lay her on her left side.