Maddie has been sick since Thursday morning which would make today DAY 5 of sick watch. I’m seriously losing it! Going.....crazy, looney, mad, loco etc. It all started with crankiness and a fever of 100.3 Thursday morning and escalated to 103.7 by 9:00 that night. Both Dan and I were worried sick because there were no other symptoms and Maddie has never been that sick or had a fever that high before and we really didn’t know what to do. I tried the warm bath which caused her to start shaking with the chills and crying non stop, I tried putting cool wash cloths on her forehead and chest and we tried tylenol. We were both opposed to taking her to the ER because the wait would have been ridiculous and she was exhausted because it was past her bestime and the last time I went to the ER when Maddie was 7 months old there was absolutely nothing they could do and it really tramatized both of us because they ran a whole bunch of unnecessary tests on her. We finally got the fever to go down a little bit and Maddie basically passed out and pretty much slept the night through. I for sure thought she would wake up Friday morning and feel fine because every illness she has had thus far has only lasted 12-24 hours other than colds of course.
She did not wake up fine. Her temp was lower, but still high at 102.7 so I called her pedi and made an appointment. Of course by the time we got there her fever was pretty much gone because we had given her tylenol and there were no other symptoms so the doc said to just keep her hydrated and continue giving her tylenol and motrin as long as she had a fever and if it was still around on Monday to bring her back because by then there should be other symptoms. We went home with our no fever child and put her down for a nap. She woke up about an hour later crying hysterically, her fever was back up to nearly 103 degrees and she sounded hoarse. We gave her some motrin and the rest of the evening she was pretty much stuck on the couch watching cartoons looking terribly sad. Friday night was not nearly as easy as Thursday night was and she was up about 4 times during the night.
Saturday morning she still had the fever, was really hoarse and was acting like her throat hurt. I ended up e-mailing my moms group and told them what was going on with her and asked if anyone else’s kids were sick, or if they had been recently with anything that resembled Maddie’s symptoms. I got quite a few responses and one woman said that her son was sick right now with strep throat and has the exact same symptoms. So we loaded the sicky poo into the car and drove to my doc office urgent care because if it was strep I didn’t want her to be in pain and go through the rest of the weekend just getting worse if I could prevent it. Well, the 6 minute strep test came back negative but Maddie’s throat looked HORRIBLE. It was all red and inflamed and by that time she wasn’t eating or drinking anything and wasn’t really even swallowing because it hurt so much......there was a lot of drool cover her, Dan and I! The urgent care doc thought that it was probably a viral infection which there isn’t any type of medicine for and we were told to keep her hydrated, give her warm and cool things to eat/drink and to continue giving her tylenol and mortin for fever and if she is acting like she is in pain.
So, here we have been since Saturday living with a sick toddler. Her fever broke yesterday and we haven’t seen it back again, but by no means is she "better". I am so emotionally and physically exhausted. I never really knew how much worry and stress a child could cause just by being sick and having a high fever. I feel so terrible for her, but also just want to be done.....it’s been 5 days of dealing with a child who is in pain and miserable and who is crying over every little thing and so so clingy. She doesn’t want to eat or drink.....I continue to try and even went out and bought fun foods that I normally don’t give her in hopes of her wanting to eat the fun food, but she doesn’t want popsicles or spaghetti o’s or jello and I’ve even resorted to giving her more than 50% juice in her sippy (with the non flavored Pedialyte) just to entice her to drink the freakin stuff. She wants to be held all the time, but doesn’t want to be held, but when I put her down she cries and wants to be picked up again. She is not okay with me being anywhere but right next to her on the couch while she watches cartoons. I got so sick of Dora that Dan went and rented Monsters Inc., Over the Hedge, Veggie Tales-Jonah and Madagascar and she didn’t really like any of them (too grown up for her maybe) and so here we are watching the same episodes of Dora and Backyardigans over and over and over. She cries when I change her diaper, she cries when I give her a bath, she cries when I try and feed her, she cries when she is tired and needs to go to bed, and yet she hasn’t really been sleeping. Last night she was waking up about every hour, she has only napped for 45 minutes everyday since Thursday and she is used to getting 12 hours of sleep at night and between 2-3 hours of naps during the day. So, I know that the lack of sleep is making everything so much worse, but I don’t know how to get her to sleep when she is in pain!!!!!
I hope that this blog didn’t come across as me feeling sorry for myself because I really don’t. I am going a bit stir crazy from being inside and a little crazy in the head from Maddie crying/whining most of the day and me not being able to do anything to help make her feel better. This is soo not how she normally is and I’m not at all used to it and it’s now been going on for 5 days which feels like forever! I think that I just needed to vent a little bit. I feel so horrible for her and I hate that she looks at me with big fat tears in her eyes with a face that says help me Mama and there really is nothing that I can do.....she is too young for me to explain what is going on, or reason with her that sucking on ice chips or popsicles will help her throat feel better. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with the things I’ve been trying that might make her feel better and I can’t make her or get her to understand. I feel stuck and frusterated.
Maybe she’ll wake up tomorrow morning and feel 1,000 times better. Here’s hoping! Please pray for the crazy mom, that I may have patience....or I just may end up in the psych ward!!!!!
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