Sick, Sick, Sicko

Without question, one of the greatest blessings our family enjoys is excellent health- or at least few illnesses thus far.  I could probably count on one hand the number of times I have had to take either of my kids to the doctor for something other than a well-child checkup.... Leah had a broken arm and lost her voice to croup once, Adam... well, nothing until today. 

The kids both had a nasty bout of pinkeye two weeks ago, and I took them in to get eye drops to clear it up.  Leah recovered quickly, and while Adam's eyes cleared up, his accompanying cough and congestion have been getting worse and worse.  After he fell asleep in the middle of stake conference yesterday and spent the rest of the day with a high fever, I decided he needed to go back to the doctor. 

Leah had a dentist appointment this morning, and we had just enough time to kill before Adam's appointment that we went to the local zoo and park.  I knew it was getting bad when, instead of watching the dancing porcupine (whom we had affectionately named Mr. Pricklepants), Adam did this-

I'm not sure there are many thing things that have made me feel like a worse mother than dragging my sick child around the zoo, especially after the nurse informed me that his temperature was 103.7. 

She asked me when his fever started and what the highest temperature I'd recorded was.  Bumbling over my words, I responded "Well... I haven't been taking it... he just felt.... hot..."

The down side to having generally healthy babies (if there is one) is that I really stink at knowing when to take temperatures, how soon to call the doctor, when a fever is worth calling in about... But at least we were at the doctor's office!  That counts for something, right!?  Lest  sound like a complete idiot to you (it's too late for convincing the nurse), I should mention that Adam was perking right up when he got Tylenol, slept a peaceful 13 hours last night, and has been eating, drinking, and peeing like normal.  So I knew things weren't that bad, just more uncomfortable than we'd like.

It turns out he's got the beginnings of an upper respiratory infection, and we were sent to the pharmacy to fill our first prescription of amoxicillan (yum! I lived on that stuff growing up, thanks to an endless childhood of ear infections).  We also stocked up on popsicles and pudding- sick bed staples- and now we're just praying that Mr. Man will be back to normal in no time. And that I can continue to keep this blessed ignorance about sicknesses, embarrassing as it might be.