Fever - In The Morning, Fever All Through The Night

We kept the kids up until 9:30 last night so we could give Ben one more dose of Tylenol before we put him to sleep. Besides my sleeplessness due to constant coughing, all was going well, or so we thought, until around 3:30am when we heard poor Benny throw up. As Travis approached Ben's bed the squish of partially dried vomit between his toes (hehehe, better him than me!) told us this wasn't the first time he had thrown up. The poor kid ralphed on the floor between 9:30pm and 3:30am, then again at 3:30am in his bed. Travis went to work on the sheets as I attacked the carpet. We are like a well-oiled machine cleaning up puke in the middle of the night. We have had way too much practice. While Travis was taking care of the laundry I took Ben to the tub. He was so excited to take a bath he took his pajamas and diaper off while I was filling the tub. Before I knew it he had jumped in and left a skid mark about 18 inches long in the tub. That's right, he had poop in his diaper. Awesome. I drained and cleaned the tub. As I was refilling the tub with water Travis came in to check on us. He innocently asked, "How's it going?” This is when I went from well-oiled to cranky. "Great, just great" I respond with a healthy dose of sarcasm. I went back to Ben and Lauren’s bedroom to find Lauren sitting on the foot of her bed with the lights on. “Mommy, I want to go to sleep,” she said in her most pathetic little voice. “Go ahead and lay down baby” “I can’t, you are being too loud and the lights are on”. Point taken, I quickly took Ben's temperature, it was 102.7, before putting him back to bed with another dose of Tylenol. We crossed our fingers and hoped this would be the last time we got up before morning. At 8am Ben woke up with a 104.9 fever. Yikes! We have friends of the family that are still caring for their adult child that became brain damaged after a high fever when she was around 4 years old. Needless to say we were scared. We gave him another dose of Tylenol, put him in a cool tub and called the on-call nurse. I got him out of the tub as I was talking to the nurse; his temperature had only come down to 104.6 after 20 minutes. The nurse told us to head to the ER. I took Ben while Travis stayed home with Lauren and Jack. When Ben and I got there we were taken to triage right away. They went through the standard questions, when did the fever start? what have you done?, when is his birthday? Apparently, I was pretty freaked out when they were asking the questions because I told the nurse his birthday was 8/5/05. A few minutes later admissions came in and asked if he was born at that hospital. "Yes" I said, thinking why does that matter? "I have that he was born on 8/3/05,” the lady questioned trying her best not to give me a judgmental look. There goes my Mother Of The Year award; I can't remember my kid's birthday under pressure. They gave Ben a little Motrin then the doctor examined him. He has strep throat. They had us wait for a chest X-ray. The doctor said that would determine which antibiotic they would put him on, but I am convinced it was to help pay for their fancy X-ray machine that can be wheeled from patient to patient in the ER. The guy next to us with gout even got an X-ray of his foot. I don't know, I'm just sayin'... His chest is clear so they sent us on our way with a prescription. By this point the Motrin had kicked in and Ben was a new kid. He was running around the room laughing. As I carried him out of the ER he was saying "bye, bye, we are going to Chuck E. Cheese, see ya later!"

I learned a couple important pieces of information this morning. Number 1, when your child has a high fever never put them into a cool bath. The nurse said that it is the fluctuation in body temperature, not how high the temperature is, that causes a child to have a seizure. Wow, I had never heard that! Even the on call nurse said to give him a cool bath. Good to know. Glad I didn't have to learn that the hard way! Number 2, Motrin works better to bring down a fever than Tylenol. Hmmm, I thought the exact opposite. When your kid has a high fever it is best to give them Motrin and something cool to drink to bring down the fever. This has been a public service announcement. You. Are. Welcome.