Friday, February 05, 2010

Not my favorite numbers...

Want to know what two of my LEAST favorite numbers are? (You KNOW you do!!!)

104.7 (degrees that is)
3:30am

Yep, we had FUN in the Bowers household last night.

After a morning of super fun (blech) stomach virus for me, I was called around 10:45am by the daycare saying T had a temp of 103! Now, forget the NORMAL reaction of panic when you hear this news. I had the added joy of not being able to get vertical without passing out and/or getting sick. How was I going to GET the 20 month old (OH my gosh, I can't believe we hit 20 months tomorrow!!!) home, and once I got her here, how was I going to look after her if she did anything other than sleep?!?

I told the daycare that I would come and get her if they would bring her out to me so I wouldn't infect the whole daycare with a stomach bug. I hung up the phone, stood up to go brush my teeth and find a hat (that no-vertical thing impairs the showering abilities, ya know), and almost instantly hit the floor. I was so light-headed that I all but passed-out.

CHANGE OF PLANS!!!

If I can't STAND, I certainly don't need to drive my car even the two blocks to daycare. So I called the hubs, interrupted his class, and broke the news that this, somehow, had to become his problem. He, sweet thing that he is, called his mom (who lives a little over an hour away) to come look after T the rest of the day. Then he got someone to cover his class, drove the 20 min from school to the daycare, brought the pitiful (and thankfully sleepy) baby to me, went to the store to buy soup, crackers, ginger ale, and Pedialyte just in case, and then went back to school to finish his day. (Super hubby INDEED!!!)

T's fever never got below 102 all day, and she spent most of the day in either my lap or Granna's lap, sucking the fingers, hugging the bear, and being pitiful. Around bedtime, I decided that I needed to call a nurse at Children's (which is who my Dr. connects us to after hours) and make sure that we didn't need to bring her in. I try not to be too chicken little about fevers, but I remember one of the things they always ask me when I DO call about fevers is, "Is she acting like herself - playing around, or is she listless?" Listless she was.

The nurse ran through the risk-factor questions, told me to give her Tylenol, and said she was going to call me back in an hour and a half and by then, T should be back to herself, playing around. (How great are these nurses that not only will they ask my questions, but they will call ME back to make sure things are good?!?) She was fine when the nurse called back, so she told me to continue with Tylenol every 4 hours, and to wake her up (WHAT?!?) at least every 4 hours during the night AWAKE ENOUGH TO BE PLAYFUL (WHAT?!?) to make sure she was responsive. "A sleeping baby doesn't necessarily mean a healthy baby."

We came up with a plan. There would be two wakings during our night. Drew would take the 11:30 shift (waking, temp check, Tylenol, playing, getting her back to sleep - yeah right!), and I would take the 3:30 shift (boo!).

At 11:30, Drew's alarm went off to wake him to go check on her. I drifted back asleep and was ALMOST there when I heard, "Leslie? Leslie? The thermometer says 104.7." Now, I know the nurse told me that her behavior is MUCH more important than the number, but 104.7 is SCARY to me no matter what!!! (I hear that temp and my mind immediately goes to the "This is your brain on drugs" commercial - eggs frying!)

So we called the nurseline back and after running through the whole riggamaroe again, she assured me that we could stick with our original plan - Tylenol and awake enough to be responsive every 4 hours, then plan on making a Dr. appt. first thing in the morning.

At the 3:30am (seriously, I HATE that time of day) check, the temp was down to 101. By morning, it was 100. We went to the doctor. Want to know what the official diagnosis was? "She has a temperature. There are no other symptoms, so I really don't know what's causing it, but it looks like it's on its way out, so that's good." Glad I could get out in the freezing rain with sick Mommy and sick baby and pay you $30 for that piece of wisdom! :) haha!

Hope you guys had a better Thursday and Friday than we did!

Head on over to 5 Moms and He & Me + 3 for a super-girly giveaway! (For those of you who are a little less blog-savvy, you can click on those blog names and it will take you right to them.)


Love & Shipoopies,
Leslie

2 comments:

Brandie said...

If she breaks out in a rash in 1-3 days, don't freak, it is Roseola (sp?)...Kaelyn did something similar, I took her to the dr, and they checked for a UTI (with a catheter no less...talk about scary for both mom and babe) only to have it come up negative. 1-3 days later a bright red rash all over. I'm sending well wishes your way!

Leslie said...

My Aunt Nan said she had the same thing happen with Brian when he was about Tucker's age. I'll definitely keep a look out for a rash. Thanks!