Sick
We have been extremely lucky that our girls are so healthy. They rarely get sick at all, and when they do, it is always pretty mild and over within a day or two.
I’ve just recently realized all of this, and even remarked to a few friends my amazement about how infrequently anyone in ever gets sick around here. (I think the conversations were spurred by my mentioning a recent visit to the doctor–the first one in, oh, I don’t know, probably 2 years.) (Not counting the ER trip a few months ago for a toddler shoulder pulled out of socket.) (And this recent one was solely for the purpose of establishing care with someone in the area, so we’ll have someone to call should the need arise.)
Well, as usual, it doesn’t take long for me to put my foot in my mouth. Jade started out with a bit of a [clear] runny nose this morning and I really should have known something was wrong when she started asking to go home while we were at the park for playgroup. (I know, it’s January. But it’s beautiful here.)
It was pretty late when we got home and I’ve been letting her skip naps anyway the past few days–she’s just at that stage where either way you go, you can’t really win, but at least this way she falls asleep in no time at night. Though I’ve been wondering if maybe not getting enough sleep led to a lowered immune system, which led to this.
She didn’t want a nap anyway–they both went straight away into their room and played for over an hour while I sat on the couch reading (note recent Tweet). They were playing doctor, oddly enough–Jade was the patient, and Sarah created a little bed on the floor for her, and was giving her little plastic food items–I never did find out exactly what those were for.
At one point I heard Sarah talking to Jade from the bathroom, giving step-by-step sort of details to let her know when she’d be back. (e.g. “Now I’m flushing the toilet. Now I’m washing my hands.”)
But when she got back, her patient had gone to sleep “in real” (as 5-year-old Sarah puts it.)
I was tempted to wake her up–it was already 3:15 and visions of a toddler bouncing off walls at 1 am ran through my mind–but she obviously needed rest, so I left her alone.
When she woke up about 45 minutes later, she was pretty sluggish and a little red-faced. I gave her a bit of echinacea and a small amount of a nutrient-packed smoothie and after an hour or so of lounging around, she started feeling warmer and her temp read 100, though I’ve heard you add a degree or so if you take it under the arm, which we did.
The fever is a good sign though–it means her body knows there’s an infection and it’s fighting it. From the way I understand it, her body temperature has to rise a bit to kill off the bugs. Or something like that. Anyway, I know not to try to bring it down unless it starts getting scary-high, so we’ve just been doing what we can to help her be comfortable and get rest.
She went to bed pretty early but woke up around 11:30. We gave her a bit of orange juice (for Vitamin C) and water, but that turned out to be just enough to make her to throw up, poor girl. All over both of our new nightgowns, I might add.
Now she’s sleeping peacefully again, cradled in my arms as I type. Here’s hoping this follows the usual pattern of short-lived illness.
Edit: I don’t think I ever updated this, except on Twitter. There were no other problems. She woke up dancing all over the house the next morning.
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