This Morning’s Unexpected Turn of Events
This weekend Cee’s stuffy nose evolved into a fever. It bounced around the 100-101 range, so we handled it with Tylenol and kept an extra eye on him.
This morning I heard sad whimpering coming from his room at 7 am. This wasn’t his normal “I’m bored, let me out” cry, something about it was different and haunting, so I didn’t bother to dress, I just ran to my baby.
I grabbed him and immediately knew that his fever had spiked. Wrapping his little body around my shoulders and waist I could feel the heat race out of his hands and feet.
I tried to remain calm, but I was afraid.
I grabbed the thermometer – 104 beeped up at me from the little screen.
I raced for the medicine, gave him a dose, fixed a bottle to get him drinking and got on the phone to my doctor’s office.
The nurses weren’t in yet, it was still too early, so I was sent through to a help hotline. I explained how the morning was going for me to a very kind nurse who told me that I was doing a great job so far and that a warm bath for about 20 minutes would bring the fever down even more.
After Cee’s milk I stripped him down and stuck him in the tub. I took two phones with me – the house phone to try and find Jay and my cell phone to keep trying the doctor’s office. I hoped that if I could be the first to call in the morning, then maybe I could get a spot today.
The bath helped Cee a lot. He smiled at me and chewed on plastic frog legs.
I couldn’t get Jay – I knew that he’d gone to work early to exercise, but I was hoping to catch him in the locker room. A few times I got an answer, but I couldn’t hear anything but background noise.
I got more and more frustrated with each call.
Finally Jay’s voice came loud and strong through the line and I was able to explain everything that had happened. Jay jumped to action and came home to bring me the car. I got through to the doctor too and had an appointment in 20 minutes.
We went. A secondary infection, but not in ears or throat, probably in lungs, could be pneumonia (a scary word for a mommy to hear), need chest x-rays now.
Jay couldn’t get through to his boss, so he appeared to be late with no explanation. I took him back to work, dropped him off and then went looking for the nearest radiology office.
I went to one, but they didn’t do x-rays. I tried to find two others using the first office’s directions, but got terribly lost. In the end I put in another address in my GPS and went miles and miles away.
The whole drive around town took an hour. Cee was calm, but I was not. I was anxious, I wanted results now, not an hour after. I wanted him to be alright.
We finally make it to the 4th office and got checked in. I hadn’t had breakfast, brushed my teeth, washed my face, nothing, but bless them, they had doughnut holes and I snagged one to keep me going.
We dressed Cee in a little hospital gown and a lead apron and stood him in front of an x-ray machine that was dropped as low to the floor as could be. Cee was afraid of the machines – he cried, he wiggled, and with all of his wiggling he ended up having to take about 3 more x-rays than he needed.
It was over, finally, and we came home, to eat, to play, to sleep.
Now to wait and wait for the results. Oh please let them be good!
