I Never Knew ....

Fevers could go above 104F.

My little buddy, Donovan has been sick for over a week now.  It started out as "sneezing fest" for 3 to 4 days and then the runny nose and cough.  Intermittently a fever of various grades would arrive and then disappear as quickly as it arrived.  Leaving us a bit puzzled.

We took him to the doctors last Sunday after cutting our family Philly trip short by a day.  Felt he needed to be closer to his doctors since the fever seemed to be getting higher and sticking around a bit longer.  Plus he had no energy, he looked quite pathetic if the truth be told.

The doctor said it looked like he had the beginnings of sinus infection wrote us a script for an antibiotic and told us to hold off for a couple of days before filling it.  She wanted to see if the body would be able to fight off the infection on its own.  He seemed to be better, no fever so I sent him to school last week.  The middle of the week he seemed to still be coughing but the nose wasn't so bad.  So I let him be.  Thinking the body was fighting off the infection and for once I decided to listen to the doctor and not administer antibiotics too early (their definition of too early I might had).

Friday afternoon, Donovan tells me he's tired.  He curled up on the couch and fell asleep while watching T.V.  We were having company over for dinner so I just wanted him to nap this way it would be okay for him to stay up later.  Jon comes home from work, tries to wake Donovan up and notices that he is "on fire".  The poor thing had a fever of almost 104F.  So we gave him Motrin let him just chill some more and eventually the fever went away.  When he woke up on Saturday, the fever was coming back so we took him to the doctors again.  This time the doctor said, he has a sinus infection and swollen glands.  Give him the antibiotics now. So we did and we had him chill out for the better part of the day.  The fever seemed to have fallen to a low grade fever and we made a quick trip to the Mall to get a few things but keeping him in a stroller to keep him relaxed and quiet.  When we finished our quick errands, we bought some frozen yogurt and went home.  Donovan wanted a bath so we gave him a medium warm bath and got him ready for bed gave him all his medicine including Motrin, and while snuggling with him for a few minutes he had fallen fast asleep.

Since he has a lot of medical issues (including Asthma) we still use a baby monitor.  He was talking all weird-non-sense, as if to be hallucinating an hour and half after falling asleep.  We went up to check on him and he had a fever of over 106F.  Jon and I never moved so quickly to get a child to the hospital.  Fortunately my parents live down the street and they took Norah for a sleep over. One that Norah has been begging for, for so long.

Donovan screamed and screamed that he didn't want to go to the hospital.  He wanted nothing to do with being poked and prodded and I certainly couldn't and didn't blame him.  I finally was able to calm him down, explaining that he was really sick with a high fever and that they were going to help him feel better.  He was so worried he was going to get needles.  The hardest part is I didn't know what they would do to him so I couldn't promise him that he wouldn't get any.  All Jon and I could say was, he was going to be really brave and Mommy and Daddy were going to be with him and hold his hands and help him be brave.  Nearly broke my heart.

We get to the ER and go to check in - even though Donovan has only been around this world for 3 1/2 years - his medical history is so long it hosed up the "admitting system" for a good 10 minutes.  We waited a bit and they finally called us back.  By the time they got him, his fever had dropped to 101.5F, it appears the Motrin finally decided to kick in and I'm sure the ice cold water I was pushing didn't hurt!

One thing that I find totally amazing about my son, no matter how crappy he feels, he still has these unbelievably incredible manners.  Everything was yes please,  no thank you, etc.  He was using these manners, when if I was in his place, I would have been using the best curse words I could think of.  Bless his heart!

Fortunately, our stay wasn't too long in the ER.  The Physician Assistant checked him over and low and behold he has a nasty ear infection in one ear and the other ear its just starting.  So not only does he have a horrible sinus infection and swollen glands, we now get to add double ear infections to his diagnosis.

I have no idea why for the first time in dealing with doctors and antibiotics that I stalled on giving him the medicine.  I think mostly because he was just on them about a month ago.  He appeared to be doing better earlier in the week.  Now I think, if I had only given the medicine on Tuesday, maybe we could have avoided all this "pain" and "suffering" my little man has been dealing with over the last 36 hours.  I erred and I could just kick myself.

The damn fever is still hanging on although more of a low grade one.  Just hoping that it stays that way.  Next time, I'm just going to give him the antibiotics and not wait.  Tomorrow first thing, I'll be making an appointment with the ENT for sure.