Scary Days
My sons are sick. It started Friday at supper time. Baby Boy couldn’t keep his food down and had a low-grade fever. I gave him plenty of water and kept him in bed all weekend. He couldn’t keep anything down … not chicken broth, not even a snow cone. There’s nothing in a snow cone but water and sugar! By Sunday, I was getting worried and figured I’d get him to the pediatrician on Monday.
On Saturday, my older son went to Merit Badge College and worked on his cycling and law badges. On Sunday, he was draggy and listless all day. I assumed it was because we were all tired, so I made him go to youth group while I was at handbell practise. (Baby Boy, aka King Ralph, stayed home in bed.) On the way home, though, he was almost in tears and told me that his back and neck hurt terribly … that they’d been aching all day. (Why don’t they tell you this stuff before it gets unbearable?) I reached over to smooth his hair and burned my hand on his forehead. He hadn’t had a fever before, but he sure had one now.
So I did what my SIL hates: I roared into the minor med clinic 15 minutes before closing time. With both kids in tow. I figured that since I had to bring Fever Boy in, we’d take a look at King Ralph, too. They were very nice.
King Ralph turned out to have a double ear infection, and they figured the hard coughing he was doing was, as I suspected, the reason for the stomach issue. Gave him amoxicillin for the ear bugs and phenergan for the hurling.
Fever Boy, on the other hand, had to be difficult. The minor med doctor ruled out strep and influenza, but could not rule out meningitis — which the achy neck and high fever (103+!) made us suspect. So I took King Ralph to my parents’ house to spend the night, and took Fever Boy to the ER.
The ER doctors scoffed at the idea of meningitis. (But at least the fear factor of it means they see you RIGHT NOW.) I can’t stand doctors who scoff. They tell you things like “if you have a fever, a headache, and a stiff neck, it could be dangerous, so go straight to the ER.” Then some smart-aleck know-it-all who thinks the stethoscope ’round his neck means he’s somehow better and smarter than everyone else and the fact that he works in a hospital instead of a clinic means he’s better than most doctors, too, smiles superciliously, looks down his nose at you and tells you he seriously doubts it’s anything as dangerous as meningitis. Whatever. Just figure out why my kid has a fever of 103 and the only thing hurting is his neck, would ya?
Three hours, several sample tubes of blood, a saline drip (“in case he’s dehydrated” — which I could have told them he wasn’t), and a couple thousand dollars later, they confirmed that it wasn’t strep, ‘flu, or meningitis, told us it was a systemic viral infection, and sent us home.
It was quite a relief that he isn’t dangerously, deathly ill. But both poor kids are still pretty sick. So we check in with the pediatrician tomorrow. Fever Boy is still running a fever … though it’s dropped from 103 to 101. King Ralph seems to be doing better; food seems to be staying where he puts it now, and his cough is a little better.
Since I got a mere 4 hours of sleep Sunday night and got through Monday on sheer determination and 5-Hour Energy shots, I went straight to bed very early Monday night. Today was better, but I’m still dragging. So I’m off to bed early again tonight.
1 Comment
Yikes! That’s rough. Hope everyone gets feeling better.