I’ve been eyeing this print over at Urban Outfitters for months now, but it won’t seem to go on sale. (does this ever happen to anyone else?)
Diaries of a Sick Kid (Part 2) / july 19, 2012
I don’t remember if I mentioned in the last post or not that we visited our pediatrician on Monday afternoon. Having no references when we moved here, I just picked his name out blindly from a list. Turns out I’m excellent at that because he was wonderful!
I’m hesitant to give out his name because he’s already incredibly over-booked (think of booking at least a month out for the next available appointment) but if you’re desperate, email me and I’ll share his name. But for now he is Dr. D.
Dr. D talked with us for a good twenty minutes about possible infections Jack might have. He taught me so much of what to look for in the next child (sores from hand-foot-mouth disease, rashes, swelling, etc.) which I am grateful for. It was concluded that Jack could possibly have roseola, but since he didn’t have a rash yet we couldn’t confirm it. (Roseola starts with a very high fever – think 104 to 105s – and after 3-5 days the fever dissipates completely and a rash forms all over their chest area.)
Lo and behold, I noticed a rash all over his body the next morning in the bathtub. Luckily with roseola they 1) only get it once in a lifetime, and 2) the rash doesn’t bother them. And he’s not contagious anymore, so our incubation period is up! It’s nice to know what it actually was, rather than always wondering if there was something important we missed.
And I finally got to take Jack outside again, where I may or may not have sprayed him with the sprinkler on purpose. :)
Diaries of a Sick Kid (and how to fail at birthday-present giving) / july 17, 2012
Saturday morning Jack Jack woke up quite sleepy and lethargic. He was up around 7:30am and back in bed (and fast asleep!) by 9:30am. When he woke up around 11am I checked his temperature, and sure enough he was quite feverish.
As the afternoon wore on, we did our best to keep his fever down, only to have it skyrocket close to 105. Enter full-on panic mode by the parental units (Tyler and I) – we had plans and a babysitter lined up for that night! How often does that actually happen?!
For Tyler’s birthday on the 8th I surprised him with front-row tickets to the Earthquakes vs. Real Salt Lake soccer game here in San Jose. The tickets weren’t cheap, and neither is paying for a babysitter for six hours, so we thought of everything we could to steal the chance to still get to go. Our new plan was to get his fever down and off to bed by seven. We’d skip dinner and go straight to the game, and he’d be asleep the entire time the babysitter was here. Unfortunately Jack’s fever continued to rise to 105, he wasn’t sleeping, and we didn’t feel comfortable leaving him with anyone.
We ended up giving our tickets away to my dear friend Liz and her husband, (who thoroughly enjoyed the 5-0 game, by the way) and headed into urgent care. Three long hours later he had been poked and prodded far too many times for his liking. My protective mama instincts kicked in though when an idiot nurse (excuse me, but I was livid with her) forgot to draw the correct amount of blood for a test and poor Jack had to end up being poked two more times than was actually necessary. One of the worst things in the world is watching your baby screaming in pain that could have been prevented were it not for someone else’s stupid mistake. However, I’m grateful the doctors didn’t brush us off and actually tried to diagnose where the infection was.
They recommended that if the fever didn’t drop at all by Monday (three days) to visit our pediatrician for a follow-up. And thus we did. He was the most kind and gentle doctor to Jack, and talked with us for a good twenty minutes about possible infections and diagnoses to watch out for. Nothing has been concluded, but it seems that with or without a rash appearing it may be Roseola.
He is still quite sick. Though his temperature typically doesn’t rise until the afternoon, this morning he just climbed on the couch and snuggled with me for over and hour. He’s up and about in the mornings, but extremely cuddly and feverish in the afternoons through the evenings. Tyler gets the dad of the year award for all the times he has comforted Jack in the middle of the night! The man has had little to no sleep the past three nights, and yet still continues to fulfill his duties as loving husband, father, and bread-winner. I feel an awful pit in my stomach that the bulk of his birthday present this year failed miserably. No one could have predicted that Jack would get so sick, but I somehow still feel like I let him down.
And now I’m hesitant to ever make absolute plans again. Ah, well. Such is life. We all make sacrifices for the better good, right?
Emma Prusch Farm / july 17, 2012
A little girl walked up to Jack on Friday at the farm and declared to her friend, “He looks like a tiny husband.”
There’s a farm not too far from here that is completely free and offers acres and acres of green grass and clucking chickens. Jack had a blast running around this past Friday, flapping his arms and exclaiming “oh!” every time he got close to one. There is a large petting area (aside from the free-range chickens throughout the park) with a pond, ducks, geese, a pig, peacocks, and chickens. There are also 4-H animals you can pet, but because it’s off-season we only saw a couple of cows and a few sheep.
We’ll definitely go again. I love that it was free (not even a parking charge, like most places around here) and fun for the kiddos. Perhaps next time I’ll bring my REAL camera?
wife, mother, designer & lover of a juicy novel on a cloudy afternoon
copyright alie jones 2021