Lauren has been sick this week - nothing major, just a cold, but she's been running a low-grade fever the whole time and can't breathe thru her nose at all, which is making her really uncomfortable. She stayed home with R on Tuesday but now her fever is gone and she is acting normally, but still congested and has a lower appetite than usual. I always know when she's truly sick because she doesn't eat. Normally she eats like a horse - she'd eat 24 hours a day if I let her. She was up at 5am this morning, saying she had a bad dream, but honestly I think she woke up because she couldn't breathe well. Poor baby.
In the mean time, I'm desperately trying to keep every one else in the house from getting sick because a sick boyfriend and a sick 5 year-old whining at the same time would make me contemplate climbing up a clock tower and thinning out the neighborhood.
Just kidding.
Maybe.
I'm plying Ashlyn with Vitamin C and zinc and having her wash her hands on a super frequent basis. Thank god for Coldeeze lollipops. So far it's working - no runny nose or fever in sight.
When Lauren has a fever, it always makes me go into hyper-vigilant mode because both my girls had episodes as toddlers with fevers that required trips to the ER - Ashlyn had a febrile seizure (which is pretty common, but very scary to witness) and Lauren had a high fever.
How high?
105.9
One-tenth of a degree below brain death.
This is when I learned that even ER staff freak out when they see that high of a temp on a 2 year-old. I also learned that it IS ok to double dose a child with Tylenol and Motrin at the same time to keep her temp down... to keep it from killing her. This is also when I learned that getting a chest x-ray (they wanted to check her for bacterial pneumonia) of a squirming, feverish toddler is very similar to torture with medieval devices because they put her in a plastic tube to keep her still. THAT was fun.
Fortunately, it turned out that she just had a secondary ear infection.
Why was it a "secondary" infection you ask? Because I had taken her to the ER two weeks BEFORE THAT because she had an ear infection (and a throat infection and the stomach flu ALL AT THE SAME TIME) and had been treated with anti-biotics then and she seemed to be well. But looks can be deceiving, because apparently the anti-biotics weren't strong enough because that damn ear-infection hung around and popped up again 2 weeks later with the FEVER FROM HELL. (That was a really fun month, I tell ya. My then-husband was stationed in Korea, too, so I was dealing with this all by myself.)
Funny thing is, those were the only ear infections she ever got.
But, man, were they doozies.
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Just another peek into the crazy, caffeine-fueled thoughts of some chick you don't know.
6 comments:
Not fun.
My brother had that as a child, so bad, in fact, they had to put tubes in his ears so he would stop getting ear infections.
Poor kids.
Misha, I'm so sorry girlie.
It's weird how much we have in common with our Laurens.
Right when I got to Germany - the next day after we landed in fact, my Lauren developed an extremely high fever and I had to rush her to the ER in a city/post where I knew no one and didn't know where a damn thing was. 104.5 temp, and I had triple dosed her on tylenol and was expecting the Dr to bitch me out. He didn't - she was 8 months old.
And also, my Lauren has also only had 2 ear infections EVER.
Connor on the other hand....
105.9!?!? Holy Crap, that must have been scary.
Kitty Kat: The reason ear infections are so dangerous is because the way the ear heals itself (if you don't get it treated) is to rupture the ear drum and let the fluid drain out, causing permanent hearing damage. Ugh.
Nikki: I think we were twins separated at birth. Or your my doppelganger (since I'm older than you.) Hmmm...
And I get you on Connor. Ashlyn would cry and then projectile vomit ANYTHING I put in her mouth if she didn't want it there. So when she was sick, I would just straight out ask for shots from the doctor because that is the only way it would stay in. Even now, I have to bribe her with toenail polish to get her to take the whole dose of medicine (paint one toenail, take a sip of medicine, paint another toenail, etc.) Hey it works with no crying and vomitting from her and no teeth-clenching and threats from me.
Sven: It WAS scary. I actually thought my thermometer was wrong, then I tested it on myself and tested her again, then stripped her, shoved medicine down her throat and put her in the tub in about 30 seconds.
MJ - she's all better now, except for a boogery nose. That was TMI, wasn't it? :)
Wow, went through the same stuff with mine, complete with husband over-seas. Luckily mine are almost adults and I can look back on those horrible desperate days with some humor. All I can say for the mothers of small ones is don't hold your breath and this too shall pass.
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