Having a sick baby in the house has got to be one of the scariest things ever. You feel so helpless. You want to help and make it all better, but you want to be careful and extra safe too. You can’t just run to drugs like you would for yourself or another adult – the self-help easy way out. Instead you worry about if the dosage of Tylonel was o.k., oh god, please don’t let me overdose him, or let him get to hot, or I wish he could tell me what hurts and what I can do for him.
Evan has had a cold for about 5 days now. Nothing horrible – or at least we thought. His appetite has been good, he was running around like usual – just with lots of fun rasping breathing and tons of extra snot. 
However on Thurs, he starting throwing up. Couldn’t even hold down water. No fever, thank goodness. So we started him on the Pedialite treatment of an ounce every 20 minutes or so, and eventually got him to the point where he was holding down 5oz at a time. He slept through the night fine and woke up Friday morning feeling good.
Friday went pretty much as usual – his appetite was back, he drank tons and tons of fluids, couldn’t get enough of the greater outdoors, had a good nap, etc. But then around 5:00 he suddenly became pretty listless and I discovered his forehead was hot. Took his temp. and got a 100 reading. Called the hubby in to help me decide what our plan of action should be. It took about 15 minutes for Brian to clean up and come inside. He takes Evan’s temp – it was now 102!! We run for the Tylonel, and hope for the best. Well this little boy’s head was on fire. He could barely keep his eyes open. We are in slight panic mode. (Remember since moving to AR we have no health insurance – a.k.a. no pediatrician that we can call.) The decision is made to get this boy into a tub of cool water to see if we can cool him off. Temp is now reading a 103. Evan screams his head off the entire bath and is desperately trying to climb out. No amount of comfort is going to help. It took about 15-20 minutes for his head to start cooling off. Poor baby.
I wrap him up in a towel and we cuddle in the rocking chair for a bit. Temp is now down to 99. Oh thank god! Change him into his PJs, we snuggle back down in the rocking chair with all the lights out, he is asleep in my arms within 5 minutes.
He slept through the night with some wakings and fumbling around to get comfortable, but the fever stayed down all night. Today he is acting like himself – but yesterday he also acted fine until the evening. So we are trying to take is slow and easy. Let’s hope the worst is over.
So I leave you with a photo of our little guy, taken a couple of months ago. Don’t you just want to kiss his little forehead?
