Sick Little Emily

Emily was very sick on Thursday of this week. It just so happened that Sondra was away so I had the girls to myself.

The number one sign that Emily is sick is anytime she comes up to me and as I kneel down, she leans in and says that all she wants to do is cuddle. When she did this Thursday my hand immediately went to her head and sure enough, she was hot. She had had a low grade fever the day before in the 101 range. That fever had broken so I was surprised that she was feverish again.

I laid Emily on the couch and sat on the floor next to her. I put a cold cloth on her forehead and gave her plenty of water. Her fever continued to rise. When it hit 104 I told her it was time for medicine. She's sick, but the stubbornness is a creature of it's own who's ugly head reared itself screaming "NO Medicine!" When I returned with the tiny cup of liquid motrin her hand were vice locked over her mouth. I tried everything to calm her down without luck. I tried to move her hands without being too rough, no luck. She was so worked up that I decided to check her temp again. It had shot to 105! I knew I had to do something so my next genius idea was to put the medicine in an infant syringe. I moved one hand and squirted a little into her mouth, she spit it out (shocking). I tried again and this time she swallowed it only to begin vomiting violently.

So now I have Emily in all her wrath at 105 covered in vomit. Did I mention that I also have Madison who is a sympathy crier? I immediately put Emily in a cool bath. She preferred it to taking medicine but a cool bath is only a temporary fix. Her temp dropped to 102 so I laid her on the clean couch and she instantly fell asleep.

Then I had my epiphany. I mixed the medicine into a small amount of vanilla ice cream and Emily gobbled it up. Soon the fever was down around 100 and I could tend to a hungry Madison.

A side note to this is how great and supportive Madison was. She was very patient even when I knew she had to be very hungry, bored, etc. I had to devote so much of my attention to Emily and Madison made it easier to do. Some days it's challenging to watch both girls at the same time. When one of them is sick, and Sondra is just around the corner, the easy thing to do would be to pick up the phone and call Sondra to come help. I was determined not to do that and didn't because I had Madison's help. :)

Fever or not, the baby still has to eat and cannot feed herself. She did cry and fuss at one point, but who blames her? With Emily's fever dropping she fell asleep. So I ran to feed the baby. I fed her while staring at Emily the entire time. It felt like a long feeding but I'm sure it wasn't. I checked Emily's temperature expeting the drop to have continued. When I checked after feeding Mady, her temp was 105.7!!! and it was still 2 hours before she was due for more medication.

Back to the cool bath for us. This time, Emily cried on the way, cried in the tub, but was too weak to fight it. Perhaps it actually felt good or perhaps all the tantrums thoughout the morning had drained her. This time the bath only dropped her to 103 so I dropped the entire house temp to 74 and made sure she stayed cool. Her temp never jumped to 105 again.

The rest of the day is a blur. Sondra was gone until about 8pm. By the time she came home, Emily's temp had dropped to around 100 and was continuing to drop. What makes this illness so strange is that there were no other symptoms. A few days later, Sondra noticed some red spots and determined that she had roseola. Madison has yet to get sick and our fingers are staying crossed.