Is There a Nurse in the House?

What did you do this weekend? I took care of sick people. Sickos at home that is. T has his 3rd cold in as many weeks, only this time he spiked a temp higher than I have ever seen in anyone. Saturday afternoon I took his temp by ear...106.7F!!!!! OMG!!! This was after he had already had Tylenol suppositories. We all know T will not take medicine by mouth. Well, I tried not to panic. I retrieved the old fashioned thermometer and took it under his arm. 104.5, which would equal, supposedly, 105.5 by mouth and 106.5 by rectum. Okay, nothing wrong with the thermometer. Tympanic(ear) thermometers, at least the one I own, are supposed to equal a rectal temp. T was going to take Ibuprofen, even if I had to pour it down his throat while sitting on him. Well, it almost worked. He took some, threw up, took some more, spit it out, took more...We gave him a bath and eventually his temp went down to 102.5, much better. In the mean time, I was trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He was lethargic, white as a new pair of tightey whiteys with dark circles under his eyes. He had no sore throat, stomach ache, headache, rash, ear ache or pain anywhere. I listened to his lungs, fine, I checked his belly, fine. WTF?

He went to bed and Hus and I hoped for the best. I checked him every half hour or more. When I went in at MN he was shivering and his teeth were chattering. Do I wake him up? I read somewhere that you shouldn't wake up a child to treat a fever; Sleep is supposedly more important. I was panicking a little. Hus was panicking too. "You're the nurse, you should know what to do!"

Yes, I am the nurse. I had to think a minute. What do I do? Wake him and give him medicine, take him to the emergency room? Should I call the ER in the hospital where I work? Call the doctor on call? I was exhausted and unable to think straight.It finally came to me. If T was a patient at work, I would wake him and give him medicine for his temp. That's what Hus and I did. This time he took almost all of the med without vomiting. Of course the first sip was taken with much resistance. Later, I watched him sleeping on the couch most of the remaining night. He moaned and coughed on and off. He talked in his sleep "No E, I don't want any carrots!" "Who's that?, Oh, Mama, I don't want any toast" I decided that if he was not better by morning I was either taking him to the ER so they could run lots of tests on him and tell me it's just a virus. I know some of you would have taken your child to the ER, but T has a history of having high fevers with all colds,and he was drinking and peeing okay. I also remembered that my doctor told me, during a previous visit for a fever,that she had a three day rule for fevers. Unless T developed other treatable symptoms, there was nothing they would do until he had a fever longer than that.He still had until Sunday night.In the AM he was still sick, but this time he took his medicine without any problems. By noon he was playing video games with me and actually talking.

Hus told me that last night he prayed for the first time in,well, almost forever.

Now Hus is 102 and puking. T said "I didn't puke like that!" and we turned the sound up on the TV. E has a stuffy nose. So far I just have the same cough I have had for 2 weeks.

I hope everyone out there had a better weekend!

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