One of the hardest parts of being a parent (at least that I’ve encountered so far) is seeing your baby sick. Laura woke up Friday morning with a fever. I should have known something was up even then because she slept until 8:45 when I had to wake her up. Throughout the day the fever went down. Friday night it went back up. Saturday morning she was up at 6am. She had the fever still, but it wasn’t too bad. During the day it would go up a little, give Tylenol, and it would go down. She took a really long nap (from 11-4:30) and had skipped lunch. Dinner Saturday night she ate only half of a PB&J sandwich, which she will easily eat a whole one and then some. I put her to bed at 7:02. I didn’t rock her, sing to her, or read a story. She just wanted sleep. Early Sunday morning (3am early), she woke up with a fever of 104. I gave her 3 Tylenol to take. She slept until 6 again today. She ate only 2 pancakes (will usually eat 3). She went down for nap at 11 and skipped lunch again. She woke up around 3 with a high fever again. She had also developed a barking cough at this point. At 6:45 tonight, her fever was back to 104. I was still ok with her having the fever as long as it responded to the meds. This time they didn’t do much to it even after 45 minutes. The decision was made to take her to the ER. I was originally going to take her to the doctor tomorrow morning. Very fortunately, it was our family doctor working the ER tonight. I can’t express how relieved I was to see him. I didn’t have to go through history and all that. He just knew us.
The ER visit was long. Laura had her first x-rays taken. She didn’t think much of them, but at least they didn’t hurt. Next came the blood draws. For the tests that needed to be done, she actually had to have the needle in the arm instead of a finger poke. :( The poor little girl’s veins were influenced by me I think. They could feel the veins, but when they went to poke, they disappeared. It took 5 pokes in one arm and one poke in the other. Thankfully they had gone to get an OB nurse that is used to babies/small children. She is the one that got it in one try on the other arm. During most of this ordeal, Robert was out in the waiting room with Warren. Neither one of us really wanted to stay home while the other went with Laura, so all 4 of us were there. Once Robert got Warren to sleep, he crashed on the floor as well. Finally the results came back that Laura definitely has croup and it is a variation that we can use antibiotics with. We got home at 11:45. Laura went down right away, but Warren is awake and flirting. Not a good sign for us. Robert is taking the morning off since he is getting run down. Not sure when I will get to sleep.
Tomorrow morning, acutally this morning at this point, I need to go to River Falls to get her prescription filled. The rest of the day will be quiet around the house. I am supposed to head to DeForest on Wednesday, but that is up in the air. We’ll see how the weather is with the snow and how Laura is feeling. I am hoping we can make it at some point. Time to get the little boy to sleep so we can too.