Scary Fever

I'm not quite sure where they might have picked it up, but both Elle and Ethan started feeling sick on Saturday. Elle fell asleep on the couch and Michael took her in to our bedroom so she would be more comfortable. He checked on her a while later and was shocked to discover that she was burning up with a temperature of 104.7. I called the doctor who advised us to go to the Emergency Room right away. I asked if it would be OK to go into the minor injury clinic, because experience has proven that a trip to the ER is rarely ever treated like an emergency. You usually wind up sitting in the waiting room for several hours. They insisted that the ER was the place.

fine.

We had given Elle some Tylenol to bring her fever down. She was feeling much better by the time we got there, and I was prepared with plenty of snacks, books and other paraphernalia for a long haul in the waiting room.

Much to my surprise we hadn't been checked in for even five minutes before they called us back. They took her vitals and when they determined she was stable they sent us over to the pediatric department. Elle wasn't happy about the rectal thermometer, but that wasn't going to be the worst of it.

As we were sitting in the Pediatric waiting room Elle looked like there was positively nothing wrong with her. She was her enthusiastic, precocious little self. My mom and I were both concerned that the doctors would dismiss us as second party hypochondriacs.

The doctor suspected a urinary tract infection, so I took Elle to see if she would cooperate on the potty. Unfortunately she kept telling me that it hurt to pee and refused to do it, so the nurses took her into a procedure room and gave her a catheter. We waited outside because we knew she was going to be mad and we wanted her to have some uninvolved party who she would let comfort her after the fact.

Listening outside the door was torture. We stood there and wept as she cried out for Mommy and Gra-ma and told the nurses how much it hurt in her little baby way, crying "owie!" over and over.

What was worst of all was that the test came back negative. All for nothing, and we still don't know what's wrong. However, all the upset started her temperature up again. I could feel her getting hotter by the second as she laid on my chest. We asked the nurse to take her temperature again and it had spiked to 105.8. Well, at least they got in on record and know we're not over reacting.

The doctor came back in and ordered blood work. This time we had to hold her still, and she was mad at us. An hour later the doctor called and told us that everything looked normal, meaning her fever was caused by a virus. "You can't do anything but wait it out. There's a bad virus going around and the fever will probably last about five days, but come back if it goes longer than that."

Can't do anything? That's what you think. I'm not about to sit around and let my daughter get brain damage because her fever is too high and you can't fix it.

Her fever went up again before bed to 102.7, so I gave her some more Motrin and took her to my bed. After she was asleep, I used the F-scan to find and treat the virus, (background: this is the machine Grandma used) . The doctor suspected Ethan had the same virus since he had a fever too (not as high) and wasn't feeling well. The next day I used it on Ethan. That was the end of the fevers.