Necker Pediatric hospital

Was I complaining about cold compresses in the post before?  What

a fool I was.  Oscar started feeling hotter even with the meds to the point that I was going to buy a thermometer, but the concierge downstairs had one in a first aid kit and he’s almost up to a 104.  I’m worried about a seizure at this point and downstairs when John calls down and asks if I’m coming back up and I know immediately that something is wrong.  John’s holding Oscar when I get up there and says, “we’ve got to go, he had a seizure” and from there, we’re on freaking out mode with do we take a taxi, do we call an ambulance, walk to the ER that’s closest?   

Walking is out of the question and while they’re calling a taxi because it will most likely be faster than the ambulance to the hotel closest to us, someone else says that we need to go to a pediatric hospital.  So, we’re put into a taxi to the pediatric hospital which was not good because Necker pediatric hospital is across the river and it’s rush hour in Paris.  To give the driver credit, I don’t think an ambulance could have made it there faster, but my there were times that I thought that arriving alive wasn’t going to happen.  European traffic and taxi driving and an emergency are just too much for one heart to handle.  Oscar is pretty much lethargic and asleep throughout the entire drive, which

he would have loved.  Careening around the Place de la Concorde, screaming through the crowded streets and trying to see if we could wake up Oscar periodically was the hardest 30 minutes, but it felt like hours.  Not that the hurry mattered, we checked in at the ER to then wait for 2 hours before he was seen.  He started to come around right before we were called back and said that he was thirsty, which was the first coherent thing he had said since the seizure.  I knew that we weren’t being triaged right, but couldn’t figure out how they missed something because I had said “grand mal”.  Hell, the names for the types of seizures are in French for God’s sake.  But, with John’s shaking, they though it was chills and it wasn’t until we got to the doctor and halfway through the exam that they figured out we were talking about a seizure.  And for a pediatric hospital, they sure sucked at treating children.  Oscar has never been so angry about having his throat looked at and then they swabbed his tonsils, which was a screaming, stiff, thrashing horror that seemed unnecessary given what our family had already been through.  There was no real talking to him or letting him know what was going on and that just made him distrust them more.  He has tonisillitis and this causes the spike in temp and this is where we learn that I didn’t dose him right after visiting the first doctor.  The Tylenol and advil here in syrup form is much less concentrated.  So, the 5ml that I was giving him like at home needed to be tripled to have the right effect.  So, I basically caused my son to have a seizure because I didn’t ask enough questions about the medicine before thinking I knew what I was doing.  I usually joke about being a bad mother, but now, it’s kind of hard to refute.  They dosed him properly at the hospital and we were able to leave the hospital to ride the subway back to the hotel at midnight.  And if this night weren’t crappy enough, we get back to the hotel to realize, that somewhere in all this, we have lost puppy.  Puppy has made it through two cruises, trips to family and Europe before.  And Oscar is so unhappy and sad just saying over and over, “I want puppy”.  These two days are a Dickens first line because it has been the best of times and the worst of time for sure.