Week from hell!!!

This will be one of those weeks you look back at and say “God, how’d we do it?”

Saturday Noah had a bit of a fever and Sunday I did take him to the clinic. I got the hairy eyeball about it, because Noah was pleasant and chatting and cheery… until the doctor took his temperature which was over 104 degrees. Soon he was diagnosed with strep throat and put on Biaxin. (Noah’s allergic to penicillin, at least we think so as he reacted when I had some when I had mastitis, and that was a tiny tiny dose, so we have it all over his charts and Do Not Mess Around with it.)

I hemmed and hawed. My MIL was here, and Carl had Monday off already, so I went to Montreal Mon and Tues for work as planned. I cannot really say more and not be potentially Doocing myself but I may write a locked entry about it.

It was stressful, and not because there was work to do. I did get a nice room upgrade which I might’ve enjoyed more had my coworker not taken this opportunity to try to get us to bond, so I wasn’t IN my room enough hours. I did get a bath though and a whole night’s sleep. But I missed Noah SO badly. And I was worried about him. And he cried for me at 2:30 I was told. I’d blather on about how I don’t really think it is great to leave one’s toddler but I did anyway, except that’s a good summary.

And Noah really is fine with Carl. Actually Carl was a simply AMAZING parent this whole week. As usual but he really took the stay home role. My MIL stayed another day, which was also amaaaazing. And my parents helped out. Our community worked. It was really nice.

Got home to find Noah really sick still though. Really sick. He’d been to our family doctor who thought it was not strep but an ear infection, and prescribed an alternative antibiotic but she suggested waiting to fill it until wed both to give the Biaxin more time and because 10% of ppl who are allergic to penicillin react to the new drug. But at this point and since Sun night really, he was hitting 104 as the fever meds wore off every time, and that is on an alternating Tylenol-Motrin schedule so that some med was given every 3 hrs.

Wed I had to go to work to deliver very bad news (mine, but not anything I could control), so I felt I had to go in person, but Carl had taken Tues off as well. So he worked from home and my parents helped out for most of my half-day at work. Wed night though we just could not keep Noah’s fever down even with baths so ended up in emerg at 2 am, where the fever promptly dropped a little. It was not a happy trip though. The dr there recommended sticking with Biaxin so we did for one more round Thurs morning. He also confirmed both the ear and the strep, so Noah had both.

After going to the hospital I was wide awake with terror so I got the first look at my project to test and it was not happy testing, but sending the email at 4 am was pretty impressive looking.

I stayed home Thurs. and Carl worked from home too and we played pass the baby around between conference calls. Noah was a brick but he was starting to lose it at this point. I learned a lot about my son and about, I think, me. He is an amazing stoic. I suddenly understood that some of the illness in my childhood really was what my parents described: I would seem fine, and then suddenly be in hospital with massive pneumonia. It’s just that now that I know this about Noah, as soon as he seems a little sick, I will take him in right away.

Anyways so Thurs afternoon and night were not good. We finally made the decision to switch antibiotics in the afternoon, so I was terrified about anaphylactic shock. Many childhood things do not scare me, but that one does, because of Emily and oxygen and the way there just isn’t time to react if someone has that kind of reaction. But so far so good, knock on wood.

But fever wise, same thing. Today Carl was able to watch him with some help from my mum and I went in for a day of tense executive decision making resulting in a delay, which helps ’cause I was scheduled to work all weekend. But all the stress together plus no sleep (less than 3 hrs/night) made me punchy and I was a little more direct (err me) than I usually am at work. It’s okay though; I’d rather die on that hill than not have communicated what needed to be said.

I couldn’t (still can’t) sleep in part because I just feel like I have to be awake checking on Noah. That is very definitely half normal, half Emily stuff. I also have such a deep distrust of all doctors. I mean we have seen 3 in 7 days and each one has in their own way said “try to keep the fever down, wait for the antibiotics to work, he is not dying” and I have felt “NO NO NO DO SOMETHING AAAAUGH.” So high alert and no sleep.

Carl also took Noah back to the dr because Noah was swallowing a lot and see above, allergic reaction. It turned out that in the midst of this strep throat the child has a canker sore. God. Anyways, finally, FINALLY the antibiotics seem to be kicking in and he actually went 7 hrs just now between pain meds before the fever started to hit 102 again. But he is still a very sick little boy and I am not thinking about work at all this weekend but just loving on him.

Of course now I am worried that all this means he has some horrid autoimmune thing or cancer or whatever. When probably in all honesty it’s that we took him swimming at the Briars while he had a cold, which probably started something off like the ear and then the rest got going. Still I will be watching it.

Also each doctor not our own commented on how prominent his heart murmur was. They are more prominent in sick children, but I think I might get it checked out again anyways.

I know I sound a bit detached in this post with all the work while my kid was sick, but the thing was this was THE critical week. (At least until today’s decision.) But I would still have blown it off were it not for Carl, and Carl very simply at this point is just as good as me at parenting. I truly felt Noah was just as loved, comforted, comfortable, and well cared for if Carl was here while I worked as he would be if Carl were working and I were here. And Carl was able to take the time. So there it was. I suppose I will now lose my uterus to our societal pack of hyenas but that just – how it is.

However when I got home today Noah ran up and said: I am SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU Mummy. I say this to him every day but today he said it to me. Wow. Guilt and overwhelming joy all mixed up.

Now I’m going to go collapse somewhere.

Update (Sat): He is a little better but not like the antiobiotics killed the bug or whatever. Poor guy. But he is noticeably better, so that’s good.