Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Hallucinating?

I just went through a terrifying 20 minutes, and this is how I am de-stressing: Amy is really sick today. She slept in until around 8:30 this morning and had a fever. I gave her some medicine to break the fever, and she was fine the rest of the day. Aurora had an appointment (her 18 month) at the doctor, so I decided to take Amy along and have her checked out because last night she started coughing, and she's been complaining about her ears hurting her and had fevers for 4 days last week. So Amy was checked out at the doctor, and she was given a clean bill of health. The doctor said to bring her in if her fevers or coughing gets worse. So we came home and Amy was definitely not feeling well, but she played outside in the beautiful day we happened to be having. She was definitely listless though. After a while she just sat at the table and put her head on her arm. So I took her inside and she fell asleep on the couch. Around 7pm I checked her temperature and the thermometer (undecided if it is a completely reliable one) read 104.4 degrees! Holy Cow! So I made her take some tylenol, which she did reluctantly. Then she fell back to sleep. I checked her temp at 7:30 and it was down to 103ish. Amy woke for a bit and played on Dustin's iPad. But she didn't play much before turning it off and going back to sleep. Around 9:15ish I checked her temp again and it was at 100.2. Shortly after checking her temp, she cried out and I went to the couch and sat beside her. She had a blanket on her (and no shirt), and she was crying and pushing the blanket off of her and saying, "I'm wearing too much...." she didn't finish the sentence and so I said "blanket?" and she looked at me and gave a little smirk, like she thought that was funny. And that's when I started feeling like something wasn't right. She was looking at my eyes, but not really looking at me, kind of a glazed look. I asked her if she could see me and she didn't answer so I held up two fingers and asked her how many fingers I was holding. She answered "two" and smiled at me. Moments later she was holding out her hand, which was shaking, and she was crying, "I, I, I colored too much!" It was hard for her to say the words, and I was confused. I tried to comfort her and said that she didn't, its okay. But in my mind I was starting to freak out. Then she was quiet for a moment. Then she was pointing at me, but kind of behind my shoulder, and crying out like she was scared of something. I wasn't sure if it was the lamp behind me or not. She did that a couple of times with moments of quiet in between. And just before the end of this experience she said while kind of looking around, "I felt something, I felt, I felt, you on a bus.... with, with whales." ?!?!?!?!? All of this happened within about a 10 minute time period. And yes, the last one is a bit funny, but I was FREAKING out. I was telling myself to stay calm, I was trying not to cry. I didn't know what to do. Dustin was on campus administering a test, but I tried to call him (at the beginning of Amy's hallucination). He didn't answer, so I texted him a 911. I didn't hear from him. I decided to call Amy's doctor's office, knowing that I would get an answering service, but I was hoping they might page the doctor so that I could talk to her--that didn't work out. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat beside Amy and tried to keep her calm. I would put my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart just racing. But Amy's last weird comment was the last thing she said, and now she is sleeping calmly on the couch again. I am all prepared to take her to the ER if her fever spikes again, or if she hallucinates again-- if that's what you would say she was doing, would you?

3 comments:

Jessica said...

This happened to me when I was a little girl. I had a fever of 104 and I was delirious. I said strange things and it felt like I was dreaming. It was the strangest feeling and I'll never forget it. Anyway, if I were you I would just do as much as I could to keep the fever down. Put cool cloths on her forehead, give her a luke warm bath. And continue to give her Tylenol. You are a great mom! Keep it up! I hope she gets better soon!

Alison said...

How scary! I hope she feels better soon. :( Poor little lady.

Emily Judd said...

that is so scary! I hope it doesn't happen again and that she is on the mend. scary that you were alone too and at night when the doctors office was closed!