I swear my daughter can't catch a break... and each time I have to bring her to the pediatrician's office, I am more and more grateful for Chris' employer's health insurance plan because I really don't want to know how much we would be paying out of pocket for all these co-pays and specialist visits and such.
So Sunday night she was seeming out of sorts, and being the over-worried mother that I am, I decided to take her temp and see what was going on. Sure enough, we had a temp of 101.7° paired with a rash that was spreadking beyond her legs to her torso, back, and arms. So I gave her some Tylenol and she went to bed, and I was hoping she would be better by the morning and that this was all just a fluke thing.
Well, Monday morning I checked it again, and sure enough the temp was still there at 100.5° and the rash hadn't gone away. I didn't want to give her any more meds at this point because I had a call into the pediatrician's office thinking this was all a reaction to the shots she got before Christmas, and I wanted them to see what I was seeing. Sadly, we weren't able to get in there until 2:15pm so we spent the afternoon at my mom's house playing it low-key and she was definitely OK with that.
At the appointment the temp was back to 101.7° and they gave her a dose of Tylenol while we were there (a larger dose than we were giving her -- I'll get back to this in a bit) and the reminder that I could have given her Tylenol after 4 hours (noontime) rather than waiting and having them do it there. Yeah, yeah, I get it... moving on. They did a strep test, which came out negative - Samma hated it but we learned she LOVES Pedialyte Freezer Pops!
So the doctor's diagnosis was to keep an eye on the rash, but she didn't think it had anything to do with the fever, but rather that it was just her dry skin acting up and continue with the Aveeno. Regarding the fever, we were told to be vigilant and take her temp every 4 hours, giving Tylenol as needed, and if that's not working any longer, move on to Motrin, and if the fever was still lingering come Wednesday, go back for a recheck.
Take her temp, she said... and take her temp I did. Vigorously!
When she had the spike of 102.2° on Tuesday morning, I started getting really concerned, so I left her with my mother, along with the thermometer, and asked her to call me after she took her temp next so that I could see if we needed to finally move on up to Motrin, but then there was the low 10:30am temp which had me slightly concerned but I refrained from the Motrin jump until the next couple of readings. When she was back up to 101.4 I made the call, so I ran to the drug store on my lunch break and brought it back to my mom's house, hoping for the best. And as you can see it looked like it worked!
That then brings us to Tuesday night, and I swear I brought this upon myself. A couple times throughout the day I had mentioned to people that I was glad Sam was being more lethargic than fussy because then both she - and us - could sleep better throughout the night. Well sure enough, Miss Samantha was up from 10pm-2am screaming inconsolably, and the crazy thing was, the thermometer wasn't registering a fever. In fact, as you can see above, it was reading quite low. Fearing a low temp as much as a high, we gave her some more Motrin in hopes to soothe her and try to get her back to sleep, but the only way it was happening was by Chris bringing her down to watch Blues Clues (because Sprout, the 24-hour kids channel decided to air CSPAN in our hour of need) while he tried to get her to sleep on his chest. It worked until 5am, and then it was my turn, so we snugged on the couch and she fell back asleep until 7am. I took her temp again that morning, and alas, no fever registering. Regardless, I made a call to the doctor's office because even if there wasn't a fever, the bad night we all had was about SOMEthing, not to mention a closer looked showed me her rash was spreading some, now to her face.
They took us in at 9:15am yesterday morning. Another strep test (and another Pedialyte Freezer Pop!) and this time a blood test later, the pediatrician thinks it's just viral and there's not much else we could do at this point other than letting it run its course. Frustrating to say the least, but she understood my concern about this and said that if the fever was still hanging around in 48 hours, come on back in. The rash? Also viral and again not much else we can do.
Regarding the low temps? Most likely nothing more than a failing thermometer. Shame on me, right? Bah... I went out and bought a new one at Target so as to not look like an idiot in the future, but she understood where I was coming from, especially with the restless night we had had.
And sure enough, this morning? No fever! All gone! Happy Samma, and a very happy Mama!
I will say, Sam was a trooper through all this, and even though I knew she felt miserable she was still playing and laughing, and she was definitely being more snuggly than usual. And I confess - when we made that trip to Target after her appointment yesterday, she was being so good, and I felt so bad she was sick, I had you buy her a couple of things:
Teacup Piggies! I had never heard of them before, but they were on clearance at Target, and they're so adorable! Samma pointed to one, I gave it to her to look at, and she didn't let it go. Not only is it a cute stuffed animal for her to snug, it comes with its own plastic cup to not only put the piggy in, but to put on your head, and to try to climb in it yourself!
Little Pookie -- Samma LOVES Little Pookie. She already has Let's Dance, Little Pookie, and I swear she hands this book to me almost every night to read to her. It was a piggy-filled afternoon, for sure! But what can I say? My daughter is spoiled. But I'm glad to see her feeling better, which makes me feel much better in the longrun, and I'm just so relieved that we don't have to make another visit to the pediatrician's office because of this.
And honestly? I'm tired of writing sick baby blog posts!
