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On what seemed like a regular day in our house, my 21 month old boy was sitting in my bedroom watching TV and had a seizure. Luckily (if there is anything lucky at all about the situation), I was with him at the time so I was able to see what actually happened and care for him myself. Now he had only been watching TV for about 15 minutes. TV is not a regular staple for our little boy, but I must admit we had recently gotten into the habit of allowing him to watch about 45 minutes to an hour of TV every morning: Sesame Street, Curious George, Sid the Science Kid or Super Why. On this day, he was watching Super Why and he said to me “mama, eyes”. I looked at him and his eyes were all red – like he had had a bad allergy attack or had been rubbing his eyes, which he hadn’t. One second later, he fell back on the bed. No shaking like in the movies, but his eyes were open and he was completely unresponsive. I lifted him up in the panic of my life, screaming his name in desperation. Then all of a sudden he looked at me and said “mama”. I breathed the biggest sigh of relief I have ever breathed EVER. My baby was ok. But WHOA… what the hell just happened???

I immediately called the pediatricians office and they told me to bring him right in. By this time he was playing with his toys and seemed quite normal. I rushed him into a taxi and off we flew to the doctor. No messing around. When we got there he seemed to slip into a strange daze and as the pediatrician came in he became somewhat unresponsive again. Off we were rushed to the hospital. Within an hour we were checked into the pediatric unit at NYU hospital and my little healthy baby was hooked up to more things that I want to count (or recount). The worst of which was an EEG where they attached hundred of little electrodes to his head using glue (the process was unbelievably traumatic as I had to pin him down for about 45 minutes while they glued each one on as he screamed at the top of his lungs). The electrodes each had different colored wires attached to them which were all attached to a box which he had to carry around in a little backpack – which was in turn attached to the WALL. Our 21 month old boy, and only child, had his head covered in wires attached to a wall with three feet to run around. We were fortunate enough to get him his own room but it still managed to feel like a jail cell since the crib bars extended up to the ceiling. How were we going to get our kid to sleep in that scary crib? But our child kept his spirits high, we were kept ours high for him. We never left his side and the entire Paul family moved into NYU hospital for two days.

After monitoring him for 24 hours on a video monitor and examining his test results, they concluded that he was “fine”. “Every child is entitled to a seizure” they said. “So there is NO explanation for this???” we retorted. “No, they said” abruptley. And that was that. Our child had had a seizure and we don’t know why. According to the doctors we may never know why. So what caused this and how do we make sure it doesn’t happen again?? “Well, you could try not having him watch TV? We doubt that’s what caused it but he shouldn’t be watching TV anyway” the doctor said. Don’t most kids watch TV? Were we bad parents for allowing him to watch TV in the first place? How were we going to explain to the little guy that loves Elmo so much that he can’t see him anymore?

Since our arrival back home, our little boy who loved TV, has not asked for it once. It’s almost as if he feels like TV was the cause of this terrible ordeal and he has written it off. He is perfectly happy playing with his toys instead. Our brave little boy is happy, healthy, and dare I say, back to normal.
We will probably never know what actually happened or why, but now we hold our beloved child just a little bit closer, kiss him on the forehead a few too many times, and remember how grateful we are for the health of our family.