24 May 2007 by Niels Hartvig
First; everybody is ok again.
The past 24 hours have been the most intense emotional rollercoaster of my life. Starting Tuesday evening with the release candidate of v3 I felt unbelievably happy, the day after my wife was happy too making progress with her new venture and everything just seemed pure bless.
In the evening Villum, my eight month old son, started to get a fewer and within a few hours it got so high (40.6 C) that we went to the emergency doctor. We had full contact while we drove and we thought it would just be a simple check. Then the second we entered to the doctor he started to spasm and the doctor sort of panicked. Another doctor came, he got injections to calm the spasms and emergency services came but the spasms just got worse and Villum got absolutely out of reach and his pupils went up in the eyelids. From there things went really fast, Villum and Gry (my wife) jumped into the ambulance and August (my three year old son) and I drove after in the car.
We had to park the car and even though it only took a minute, the next thing I saw was my little baby lying naked on a operating table surrounded by eight doctors and nurses all working extremely fast and concentrated. He was filled with drips and hoses and there were a zillion sounds from everything but Villum - he was still in spasms and his eyes were just gone. In that moment I thought we had lost him. I was standing holding August and I've never felt so terrified in my entire life - it was awful beyond words. The doctors feared he was suffering from meningitis and new people just kept coming in and out of the room. I don't know how long it lasted - maybe thirty minutes, maybe forty five - until Villum finally started to make some well known noises and stopped spasm.
At that moment, I felt like I had been given a warning from above. The past weeks everything in my mind have been about umbraco; v3, codegarden, the future, etc. Even though I've not been working a lot physically, but mentally I haven't been present. When CodeGarden and the rc of v3 was done, I would definitely be back I had promised myself. I'll never do that again. I'll never postpone being there for my loved ones - being present. I've been given a chance and I have no idea why I've been so lucky, why I've been given this wake up call.
I decided to share this experience for two reasons; obviously I'll probably be just a little bit more slow replying to mails and feedback on umbraco, but most importantly I hope that my experience can inspire you to pay even more attention to the people you love.
Take care,
Niels...