A month ago I got a job as an assistant architect in Kuala Lumpur. We’ve had plans to move to KL and we did exactly that now that we have a reason to. The company needed to me join them ASAP so god has His way and I found a babysitter that can be trusted.

I asked for a half day for the first day of the job so that Sara won’t be too overwhelmed. The first day I sent her, Sara cried as I left the house and I went to work feeling like an irresponsible mother. It got me thinking, what kind of world are we living in that mothers have to leave her offspring into a stranger’s care? It did not feel right for me.

When I went to the babysitter’s house, Sara cried as she saw the sight of me. She immediately wanted comfort from me. I felt like I have betrayed our 11-months short of built bonding, trust and unconditional love. And that weekend, being an observant mother, I found something was off about her. She became possessive and insecure about me. I can’t leave her eyesight or she will cry like I’m leaving her forever.

Then, a week later, she came down with a fever. Long story short, she had an episode of febrile fit. Which is a kind of seizure caused by high fever. It was really, really scary and her post-seizure condition was so worrying that I thought I had lost her. Luckily my sister (future doctor insyaAllah) was home and she knew what to do to abort the seizure. Coincidentally she had just finished her posting in pediatrics. Anyway, fast forward again, Sara was hospitalized for 4 days. I had to take 2 days of emcee. She was discharged without a fever and only flu.

About 30% of children under of age 6 get febrile fit once in a lifetime. and 10% have febrile fit repeatedly. I crossed my fingers that Sara is within that 30%. Bottom line is, everytime Sara has a fever, extra caution & monitoring must be taken.

2 weeks later, once again, Sara was down with a fever. This time we were prepared. We have her  medicine,her thermometer. We monitored her temperature around the clock even at night. She started taking pcm on Friday night when her fever started. We did the sponging routine, light clothing, constant monitoring etc. Then, the next day, 3 hours after her last pcm dose, she was still at 38.8. So, we quickly rushed to the clinic to get her a pcm sup to bring down the fever.

Unfortunately, the doctor refused to give her the sup because it’s only been 3 hours. At the hospital, they would still give her sup even when her last oral pcm dose was an hour ago. So, I felt uneasy about this doctor’s decision. At the same time, I also fear for overdosing her. The doctor suggested us to wait for another hour and keep sponging her.

And.. as fate has it, an hour later before we could even give her the sup, she had a second episode of febrile fit  while I was nursing her. This time we knew what to do and we quickly helped her abort the fitting. We rushed her to another nearby clinic to get her sup. We then immediately referred her to Gleneagles KL.

Now, having the second fitting, it’s almost confirmed that this might happen again in the future, and we have to do the best we can to avoid Sara getting a fever in the first place. One of those things is stop sending her to her babysitter (nurseries are notorious for making kids sick. Perhaps the sickness jumps from one kid to another and becomes a vicious cycle).

Usually, babies can adapt with changes. But in Sara’s case, I think she couldn’t accept to stay with the babysitter. So, she becomes unhappy and then that makes her sick. So, before the stress starts to affect her mental development, it becomes an urgent decision that has to be made. So we moved back to Shah Alam the night she was discharged.  I admit, sending her to the babysitter was the worst decision for Sara, but I didn’t know that then (nothing wrong with the babysitter, it’s just Sara who’s unable to adapt). I’m just glad we realized this early.

That means, now I have to commute a painful trip from Shah Alam to KL.

Painful, indeed. But that’s a mother’s sacrifice.  Now, my new daily routine is cursing how KTM sucks monkeyballs. It is so bad, it needs its own post.