Tuesday, January 09, 2007

A night to remember

Last night we had an elaborate plan to deal with Charlotte waking every 20 minutes due to her high fever. The only way she would fall asleep was either rocking in the glider chair (in which the lack of cusions would make your ass and legs fall asleep while the wood spindles stuck in your spine) or by falling alseep on top of you while laying in bed (a little too much info but Shelby's body temperature is so hot while she sleeps dad can barely touch her, therefore having a baby with a 104 fever on top of her just adds fuel to the fire, not recommended). So dad thought it would be a great idea to rejuvinate the life of the Lazy Boy recliner by putting it in the bedroom. A perfect alternative to the glider. Soft and cushiony and wide enough to fit mom and baby comfortably. Plus Shelby made him "hide it" in basement since she thinks its so ugly. So dad lugged the 200lb giant chair up two flights of stairs knowing damn well its not coming down any time soon. The plan was simple. Shelby and Michael would split the night into two "shifts" to watch Charlotte. 8pm to 1am was the first shift. 1am to 6am was the second shift. The person working the first shift would be in our bedroom. With the ability to either sleep in the bed or rock in the lazy boy chair. Meanwhile the other person would be alseep in the guest bedroom. At 1am we would switch.

Mom decided to take the first shift since she wasn't tired at 8pm. Dad was exhausted so it was off to the guest bedroom. Just at that moment Charlotte awoke. Mom went and got her and cuddled her in the Lazy Boy. Somewhere around 2am dad woke up in the guest bedroom. He was late for his shift. He was going to be in trouble. He tip toed into the bedroom to find Charlotte sound asleep on mom's lap, fully reclined in the Lazy Boy. Of course he didn't want to wake them (as mom would say, never wake a sleeping baby) so it was back to the guest bedroom. This shift thing worked out in his favor.

At 6am Charlotte's screaming woke dad up. She was burning up again and this time vomiting. Not really what a father wants to wake up to. He took her from mom and rushed her downstairs so Shelby could get a little more sleep.

Through out the morning Charlotte continued to have a fever. 101.7, 100.7, 102, 101.1, 103 . Every 30 minutes he wrote the time and temperature on the whiteboard on the refrigerator. Why? Who knows, but it made him feel better.

Her doctor saw her at 10:30. He asked a bunch of questions and reviewed both her urine and blood tests. All showed negative for bacterial infection. His thoughts were that of a virus. Roseola hopefully. Symptoms include 3-5 days of high fever. Then the fever breaking followed by a rash that covers your body another 2-3 days. He was still concerned and will be watching the blood and urine samples for any further changes but that was his thought. He also took some blood from her finger to test for Lead and Anemia. Totally unrelated but figured since he had her he would test her.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Charlottes fever lingered causing her to walk wobbly and fall down a lot. Her muscles must be sore and her body must ache. Every time she fell she would cry. And she fell every time she tried to walk. Mostly we just held her close which seemed to comfort her and make her feel better.

We are prepared for another long night. We are hoping her fever has broke or will be breaking in the middle of the night. We pray that we wake up to find our child covered in a horrible rash so we can just blame it on a simple virus.

2 comments:

The Snyder's said...

Hang in there...hope she is feeling better soon! Love L, R and C

Mutterings of a Geriatric Junior said...

Please update us later today, we're worried