Do the words "Febrile Seizure" mean anything to you?

Well they do to me now!!! So I had the scariest, most upsetting thing in the world happen to me today. We almost lost our little girl. Or at least it seemed like it for about 10 minutes.

We were sitting in church listening to the speakers and Brook was just settling in for a nap on her daddy's lap. Well, she started to make this funny breathing sound, kind of like she was gasping for air, so Ben sat her up and she had this HUGE sneeze and a TON of drool poured out of her mouth. That's when she went limp. I knew immediately something was wrong and Ben was already on his feet carrying her out the door. We were both saying her name, rubbing her cheeks, talking to her, asking her if she was alright all the way to the car, but she just sat there, no response, with this catatonic look on her face. Well, naturally, I started bawling, I was losing it fast. Ben had his wits about him, got me to get in the car and hold Brook while we drove 80 miles an hour to the hospital about 2 miles away. Still took us about 5 or so minutes to get there with traffic- even with us honking our horn and swerving lanes like maniacs! I'm sure people thought we were horribly rude! But at that point, we didn't really care. The whole drive over, Brook had her eyes closed, white as a sheet with dark purple lips. She would take a ragged breath every 5-8 seconds. I was bawling and praying and trying to rouse her all at the same time! I kept trying to get her to respond, but she just laid there, her eyes rolled back in her head, barely breathing. Ben flew into the emergency pull-up and I ran inside. The second I came through the doors, Brook's eyes flew open. She looked at me with this "Mom, what's happening" panicked look and I thought my heart would break! The ER staff was wonderful and took us right back- got her hooked up to a monitor to check her vitals. They weren't great at first, but about 15 minutes since it had begun, she was looking somewhat normal again. The doctor checked her out and had a chest x-ray done. Turns out she has a good possibility of having pneumonia, but she's okay! It was such a relief to see her wake up from her nap after the x-rays and sit up and grin at us. After that it was all we could do to keep her from crawling all over everything and playing with all the medical equipment. Truly, it was one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had to go through and both Ben and I swear, if she puts us through it again, she is in big trouble!

Now some information on febrile seizures:
They are brought on by a fever, usually between 101 and 104. The child's reaction may be different, but something similar to what Brook experienced. Your reactions should be to take off their clothing as quickly as possible and get cool rags on them to try to bring down the fever. Do not try to restrain them if they are jerking and don't try to do anything with their mouth. Also, even though it feels like they are not breathing- if they are breathing every 5-10 seconds, however ragged it may be, DO NOT give them CPR. I would call 911 immediately. These seizures can last 1-10 minutes. Brook's was about 5 or 6 minutes. It scares the daylights out of you, but these kinds of seizures are not supposed to be damaging in any way- physically or developmentally. I guess they are somewhat common.

My prayer is that none of you will experience this with your children. But I wanted to give what information I could in case it can help in a situation.