You'll KNOW when he has a fever

When we went to our first pediatrician appointment, when baby Frank was one week old, the doctor told us that we would KNOW when he has a fever, because his whole body would radiate heat. Boy, was he right! Unfortunately, I got to experience that for myself this weekend. On Friday, I was at home resting and recovering from strep throat when Ms. Chelcie, Frank's day care teacher, called me and told me that he had a fever and that it was rising rapidly. I quickly sped over to the day care and picked him up. At that point, his fever was 103.8, which is dangerously close to the magical 104 number where you need to take him in to the doctor immediately. I called his pediatrician and my own doctor, and neither could see him yesterday. So we went home and I gave him Tylenol, which brought down the fever, although it came back with a vengeance every 4 hours or so when the Tylenol wore off.

He slept from 7:30 until 2:30 with no problems, and I had gone to check on him around 1:00 and he seemed to be fine, with no fever. Then, at 2:30, he woke up crying, and I went upstairs and picked him up. His skin felt like it was on fire, and he was literally radiating heat. It really scared me, because he felt even hotter than he had been earlier in the day. At that time, I took his temperature on his forehead, and it was about 102, which is about the equivalent of 104 if you take it rectally. I gave him some Tylenol, rocked him to sleep, and held him until I could feel his skin return to its normal temperature and until he did not have a fever. It took about 45 minutes, and I was honestly scared to put him back in his crib. I still had a mild fever myself at this point, so I was just plain hot and nervous for the rest of the night.

He ended up sleeping until the morning, when he woke up and again had a high fever. That is when we made the decision to take him in to an urgent care center. I had never been to an urgent care center before in my life, so I was pretty scared and apprehensive about it. I was envisioning the waiting room at the ER on Grey's Anatomy, with extremely sick people, bleeding people, and gun shot victims. Luckily, it was nothing like that, and we actually had a great experience. The doctor tested him for strep and the test was negative, but he said that all the indicators--very red throat, pus pockets, and high fever, and the fact that I had a confirmed case of strep--convinced him that we should treat it like strep and put Frank on antibiotics. We picked up the medicine, gave it to him, and almost immediately you could see a difference. He finally started playing again on his own, and was okay without being held 100 percent of the time, like he was the last 24 hours. Hopefully he will be all better soon!

Frank was such a trooper during this whole time. We suspect that his throat started to hurt a few days ago, because he would wake up and cry a little bit at night, which is rare for him, and get randomly fussy at strange times. I stupidly thought it was just teething, because he did not have any other symptoms. He started making the "m" sound when he was moaning and not feeling good, and just today he started saying ma-ma-ma. I am convinced it was because he really wanted his mama when he was not feeling good. I am actually supposed to be in Austin at my good friend jenn's bachelorette party this weekend, but I could not leave my sick baby boy. This was his first scary illness, and I now understand what parents mean when they say they would rather be sick every day than to watch their children sick and in pain. I completely forgot about my own ailments as soon as I knew that Frank was in pain. I love you so much little buddy, and I hope that you get well soon!