Sunday, July 12, 2009

Medical mystery

Have you ever... had your kid spike a high fever and look miserable, so after 24 hours of this and a call to a nurse (were he told you to wait 48 hours because your child didn't have any other symptoms) you come home from grocery shopping to have said lethargic child shoved into your arms by a frantic husband who is sure something is terribly wrong because he took his temperature again and it's really high. You repeat to your husband once more what the nurse said and calmly give your child some medicine to bring down the fever and the poor babies hand starts shaking when he is drinking out of the medicine cup so now instead of being annoyed by your hypochondriac husband you too are scared as you start thinking of worse case scenarios. So even though you have a small get together planned for later that day at your house and you have lots to do you rush off to the walk in clinic (with out waiting the 48 hours that the on call nurse told you to wait.) and are met by a packed waiting room. You fill out papers, and take a seat, the lady at the counter looks at the papers and says "His temperature is that high right now?" You say yes and she responds by tell you a nurse will be coming out Immediately. That doesn't sound good. Everyone is now staring at you and some kind young lady with a little girl sitting by you tells you that he sure doesn't look like he is feeling well. That's when tears start to fall into you lethargic child's hair as he clings to your body not responding or moving. You now fear the worse and are sure something must be horribly wrong. The nurse comes out asks a few questions, and when she finds out that you've already dosed your child she leaves you to wait with a cool cloth in your hand. A sort while later you child starts to stir, then talk, then play with the rocks he had apparently been clutching in his hand the whole way to the clinic. He sits up, and you play counting games with the rocks, he starts moving around more, talking more. He starts to feel less and less hot. He starts to look perky. Yes perky. So at the hour mark you call hubby, but decide together to wait it out and see the doctor since you are already there. An hour after that you have made it into the room but still no doctor, the nurse took his temp again and it is almost normal range and he is bouncing off the walls. She agrees that the medicine you gave him earlier would not take his temperature down that much from where it was. What in the world? So by two hours you have a child that seems in no way sick, and you are getting more and more frustrated as the seconds tick by because there is so much still left to get done at home before people start showing up. You ask if you will be charged if you leave, to be told no right as the doctor walks in. That doctor tell you nothing, but does get your child screaming at the top of his lungs, because he doesn't like the thingy that she uses to look in his ears and he doesn't like the tongue depressor and he's well just not liking any of it. So after a two hour wait, the doctor has nothing different to tell you then the on call nurse did, she didn't find anything glaringly wrong with your now angry child, and you just paid...for nothing. All you managed to do was add a lot of stress to your day. When you finally get home that said child is seemingly fine and playing and hasn't spiked a fever since.

Have you ever...?

4 comments:

Kat said...

Actually we DID have a similar incident. Kids and fevers are weird. I am prone to high fevers too, so I try not to worry, but it sure is scary, isn't it?
So glad he is okay. :)

Marlea said...

I have had the same thing happen. Lucy is my fever kid. They spike, high, linger for a bit then with some meds come down and you would never know.
All I know is you have to keep them filled with liquids and try to keep then cool.
I always keep fever meds in the house!
Still scary!!!!

Tiffany said...

Oh my gosh, have I ever! Like every time we run a desperate child into the ER! I swear an hour ago they were drying!

Melody said...

Holy cow, yes!! Many many times. If I don't take him to the doctor, he will get worse and worse and I think he's surely going to die. If I do take him to the doctor, he'll be totally normal the whole time the dr. is in the room, and as soon as we get home he's incredibly sick again. Almost every month for 5 years this happened. Luckily, he hasn't had a fever in half a year now... maybe we're finally out of that stage?! Scary stuff!!