Time Passes

Missed a day, there.

So this is what happened: Mid-morning on Friday, the daycare called us to say that Alex had a fever of 102.6 underarm (translates to 103.5 oral) so we needed to come pick him up. Matt did that, and I called the pediatrician's office, who eventually opined that it might be a delayed reaction to the immunization shots he'd had on Tuesday. (Specifically, the Measles/Mumps/Rubella one, which apparently does this often enough to not raise eyebrows.) They said that if Tylenol didn't bring the fever down, or if he was still running high Saturday morning, to call and make an appointment.

Tylenol did work -- it at least brought it down a couple of degrees out of the "scary-high" range, so we put Alex to bed Friday night and I wrestled with the Mutant Worrybrain for a while before going to bed.

Saturday morning, even though the Tylenol had worn off sometime in the wee hours, Alex's temp was low-grade, and we thought the crisis was pretty much over. We didn't bother to re-up the Tylenol, since fevers do actually have a useful purpose in germ-killing and he didn't seem to be in any pain.

Naturally, then, that evening, after the pediatrician's Saturday hours were done and after Matt had departed for his monthly D&D game, Alex's temp climbed again. I gave him a dose of Tylenol and put him to bed early. When Matt got home at about 1 in the morning, he checked on Alex, discovered that the poor kid was burning up, and woke him up for another dose of Tylenol. As long as he was awake anyway, he did another temp check and he was clocking in at over 104.

(Alex woke up crying again around 2:30 -- we'd been dutifully pushing fluid on him all day to help keep him hydrated, so he'd peed and, as we say around here, exceeded the limits of diaper technology. We got him changed and soothed and back to bed, but that was another sleep interruption for Matt and I. Whee.)

He was still hot Sunday morning, and you're not supposed to give Tylenol more than 4 times in 24 hours. But I remembered the hack they'd used at the hospital after he was born -- alternating Tylenol with ibuprofen to allow more frequent pain relief without overloading the system on either drug. I broke out the Children's Motrin.

We called the Ask-A-Nurse line to see if we needed to take him in to the Urgent Care center; the consensus was that it probably wasn't necessary but that if he was still sick Monday to take him in then.

Penny and I went to the grocery store while Alex was taking a morning nap, and when we got back, Alex was awake and cranky, but his fever had broken. We celebrated.

Prematurely.

The fever came back in the evening, again. We dosed him up and sent him to bed, and Monday, while Matt was taking Penny to her quarterly endocrinologist checkup (she's doing well -- A1C of 7.9, smack in the middle of the goal range for kids under 6) I took Alex to the pediatrician, who took all of about 2 minutes to spot a double ear infection, and another 5 minutes -- just to be on the safe side -- to rule out the flu.

So there we have it. Ear infections, and Alex is on antibiotics now and feeling much better, though he was kind of whiny and clingy this morning, right up until I got him to school, at which point he morphed into the happiest kid ever. (I did give him a shot of Motrin before school, in case the whining was because his ears were bothering him.)

Whew.

Anyway, I'm excited for tonight -- I'm taking Penny to see an acrobatic troupe at William and Mary. I love acrobats, and I think Penny will have a great time, too. She's excited, too, if only because she's going to get to stay up late. I wish Matt could have come with us, but I didn't think we could get a babysitter for Alex who could stay up that late on a school night.

(Penny was, by the way, extremely good while Alex was sick. She was mostly understanding of us having to give him so much extra attention, and not too whiny about being bored, and even made up little songs to sing to him to help him calm down and rest in the evening. Best. Big sister. Ever.)

At any rate, I'm really looking forward to the show tonight!