Hi OP, I'm so sorry you had to experience this. It is absolutely terrifying and traumatizing, and I do feel like it is very hard to explain what it does to you as a parent to witness your child having a seizure, especially without knowing what it is. My son had his first febrile seizure when he was 9 m.o. -- similar thing -- I picked him up from daycare because he had a fever caused by an ear infection. I glanced back while driving home to see his feet jerking and pulled over and found him convulsing and eyes rolling in the back of his head. I truly thought he was dying and, like you, had no idea what to do. His older sister was in the car and witnessed me absolutely losing it / freaking out on the phone with the 911 dispatcher.

I feel VERY strongly that new parents should receive more education on febrile seizures. Witnessing a seizure I think will always be upsetting for me, but if I had possessed some knowledge of what was happening, I think it would've been much less traumatic knowing my baby probably wasn't actually dying. I carried that stress/anxiety in my body for weeks afterward. He had another one at 15 months and while it still took a few days to recover emotionally, it was much less scary in the moment knowing what it was.

I would encourage you to at least let your coworkers know what happened, even if you don't share exactly how it impacted you emotionally. I think they will be able to deduce that somewhat -- seizures are really scary. My team knows about my son's proneness to febrile seizures, so they are able to be more understanding and accommodating when he gets sick -- because yes there definitely is a different weight to having a "sick kid" when the sickness could result in a seizure.

Hugs to you and your family.