Fire burning

Unfortunately this one wasn’t on the dance floor, it was on D’s forehead.

Daycare called me at work yesterday around 1:00 saying she had a fever of 102.5, so I had to go pick her up (they can’t be there with a fever of 101+). I was debating calling her doctor’s office yesterday anyway to try to get her in, because she had begun acting like her ears were really bothering her again, coughing, the phlegm in her throat and snot rivers out of her nose were back, and she has had a couple bad nights going to bed recently, all of which were symptoms present with her first ear infection.

We’re going on vacation for a week in two and a half weeks, so if it was an ear infection coming back and we had to get her on another round of antibiotics, I wanted to make sure we gave it plenty of time to work its magic before we leave.

D’s doctor is off on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summer, and there was actually only 1 pediatrician of the 4 in their office in yesterday, but fortunately she had a 2:00 appointment open to get us in. Sure enough, there was fluid in both ears again. Fortunately her chest sounded clear, though, so that’s good.

I was just worried that whatever is plaguing her now may be a little more serious this time around since she’s never had a fever, let alone one that high. So the doctor put her on a stronger antibiotic for this one, since the amoxicillin doesn’t seem to kick these things for good.

Her ears weren’t raging with infections this time, but since there was some fluid in both this was more preventative than anything, especially with the fever. And since we haven’t been in to see her doctor since her last appointment when the second infection was diagnosed, we can’t be sure that it actually ever totally cleared up. Great fun.

So when R got home from work and a quick run, he took over cradling our sick little girl so I could get a run in too. It was obvious how awful she felt – not only was her face all red from the fever, but her eyes just looked so sad and sick, and she was very cuddly, burrowing right into your shoulder or chest to sleep as much as she could.

The prescription wasn’t ready until last evening, and her fever continued to climb, reaching 103.4 at the highest – yikes! Fortunately R gave her a little bit of baby ibuprofen while I was gone, which brought it back down to about 100. It was a struggle to get the medicine in her once I got it, but we managed to control the dragon long enough to administer the full dose, and she was in bed about half an hour later.

She woke up once during the night and was a complete fireball – I could feel the heat through her jammies and every touch on my face from her little fingers was like a flame.

When was this thing going to break? She can’t stay that hot for so long, her brain is frying! Then I started worrying that her breathing sounded more rapid than usual, too. I was tempted to look online for some clues but knew I’d just find signs that she all of a sudden had some rare, incurable virus, and would spend the rest of the night worrying myself sick. Thank god the fever was gone this morning, though, back down to 99.

This is her first real illness, and the first time we’ve ever had to go get her out of daycare. I felt so horrible when I got that call at work, and I just wanted to run to her and make everything better. Hopefully the medicine will be able to do the rest of the job that Mommy’s hugs and love can’t.

 

(run stats from last night = ran 3.58 miles in 33:57, 9:29 pace. a little slower, but i knew it would be. this is a “longer” route that i haven’t run since before i was pregnant, so i wanted to take it easy to make sure i could still do it without walking. plus the turnaround point is a huge hill down to the lakefront with a run back up stairs taken 2 at a time – that hurts.)