Fever

My son has a fever. He started feeling hot Sunday afternoon. We were out of town visiting our parents and siblings. Matt's brother was in from Kansas.


Zachariah had slept a lot that morning and didn't eat much breakfast, but he seemed to play OK and we weren't too concerned. When we were at Matt's parents' for lunch, I noticed that his head felt very hot. I didn't think it was the heat outside causing it though. We hadn't been there long enough for him to be hot and his cheeks weren't rosy like they usually get when he's hot from the heat.


He was hungry before lunch, so we let him munch from the fruit platter. That seemed to satisfy him for a while, and he played a little. Although he was not interested in playing with his aunt and uncle who we hardly ever see. Then while we were all eating dinner, he got really clingy and wanted to sit on my lap. That's pretty unusual for him. Normally he'd keep eating, or he'd want down to run around. He was leaning his head on my shoulder. Then he suddenly seemed VERY sleepy. It scared me, actually, how he was being really lethargic.


We decided to put him down for a nap. There isn't really anywhere at Matt's parents' to lay Zac down. We usually just go back to my parents' house (who live about 4-5 miles away), but I knew Matt wanted to see Ben for a while longer. I took Zachariah upstairs and laid on the bed in an air conditioned room with him. He fell asleep almost instantly, but he wanted to cuddle with me even as hot as he was. We had taken everything off but his diaper, and he was still just burning up. After laying with him for over 2 hours (I didn't have a clock or I would have made him get up sooner), I decided to wake him up so we could go. He was still really out of it and hot. We got our things around and started out of there. He just sat and cried while I was getting things ready to go. Matt held him and he didn't even seem to notice. It was a whiny, pathetic, I-don't-feel-good cry. And he wouldn't say goodbye to his grandparents or aunt or uncle.

He just stared out the window with a pathetic look on his face all the way home. He would sleep for a few minutes off and on. Poor little guy was miserable. Luckily it's only a little over an hour home. Matt was so worried before we left our parents that he was asking which hospital ER we should take him to.

I called our local hospital's call-a-nurse when we got home. I took his temperature, and it was 104. We gave him Motrin and just sat and cuddled with him. That's all he wanted to do. I've never seen this kid so sick. But nothing was wrong, except he had a fever. Actually this was our first experience with him being sick, other than when he had chicken pox at 10 months old. The hospital said just to treat the fever for now. If it got to 105, then bring him right in. Otherwise, wait and call his doctor if it lasted longer than 24 hours.

He slept soundly through the night. I woke him up in the middle of the night to check his temperature and give him more meds. I had every expectation that the fever would be gone, and he'd be fine. When I woke him up, he was burning up again. He let me check his temp again and give him the medicine and some juice. Then he went right back to sleep.

In the morning his temperature was down a little bit, but he still had a fever. I called our doctor's office, and they wouldn't schedule an appointment since he had no other symptoms. They said it was probably a virus, and it just had to run it's course. They've had some going around that just have the fever for 5 days. If the fever doesn't get worse, then they won't see him.

Matt was upset that they wouldn't see him. He just wanted to know what was wrong with his baby and have them fix it. But we can understand that there is nothing they can do for now.

We spent Monday cuddling Zachariah and trying to get him to drink lots of water and juice. His fever went down little by little through the day. He didn't eat much, but by late afternoon/evening he was playing a little instead of laying around.

Today, he is feeling better. He was really hungry by lunchtime. He still has a slight fever, but it is still going down. We just keep giving him medication when needed. I hope that he's 100% tomorrow. It's no fun having a sick baby. But we're happy that he's getting better.