Excerpt from Mother Warriors

It began one morning in 2005. I had awakened with an uncomfortable feeling, like something was wrong. I noticed the clock showed 7:45. I thought it was unusual because Evan always got up at 7:00 a.m. on the dot every morning. My motherly instinct started screaming at me to run to his nursery. I opened the door and ran to his crib and found him convulsing and struggling to breathe. His eyes were rolled back in his head. I picked him up and started screaming at the top of my lungs. The paramedics finally arrived and it took about twenty minutes to get Evan's body to stop convulsing.

When we finally arrived at the hospital, the doctors told me that he had a febrile seizure, caused by a fever. I told the doctor, "You know, he doesn't really have a fever, so how does that play in the scenario?"

The doctor responded by saying, "Well, he could have been getting one."

That didn't make sense to me at all. I went home with my baby, thinking something was very wrong. I didn't know what it was, but everything inside of me was screaming that there had to be something more.

About three weeks after the initial seizure, Evan had a second episode. We were visiting Evan's grandparents when I noticed a kind of stoned look on his face. I passed him off to Grandma thinking he was just tired, but moments later his eyes rolled into the back of his head and I knew it was happening again. I frantically called 911 and put cold rags on him (which is what you do for febrile seizures). This seizure was different, though. His body wasn't convulsing this time, nor was he trying to breathe. Foam was coming out of his mouth and he began to turn pale. I put my hand on his chest and kept saying, "Stay with me, baby, stay with me."