Sick, Sick, Sick.

The only picture I got of the whole ordeal - showing off her bandaid today (she refuses to let me take it off). She is looking so much better today - she has color again and the black circles finally went away!

HD was sick this last week - starting on Saturday and ending last night. I came home from running errands on Saturday afternoon and she was asleep on the floor. She doesn't take naps anymore - at least not when everything is okay. I wasn't too worried though until she woke up from the nap and told me she was fevered (which she was) and had a headache (which she did) and that her mouth (which I think meant throat) hurt. It got progressively worse. Her temperature reached about 102 that night.

We obviously kept her home from church and everything else. I was really hoping it would be quick, but Sunday night told me otherwise. She had a raging fever and terrible nightmares - including seeing a boy in her room (ya, that freaked me out). We were up most of the night. On Monday morning, I took her to the doctor (with the help of two friends). They did a strep test (negative) and told me what they tell me every time - it's a virus, go home, have her rest and drink a lot. Sure, I expected this, but when this exact thing happens every single month (if not more often), it gets really bothersome.

We went home, she rested, watched lots of movies, drank lots of water and ate nothing. Monday night was only slightly better and Tuesday morning I thought we were golden. Not so fast, Rachel! Her temperature spiked again (103) and she was lethargic and miserable for the entire day. We were supposed to host preschool on Wednesday, but obviously that wasn't happening - thank goodness my friend Sarah helped out and took over. Tuesday night we had more fevers and another sleepless night.

Wednesday morning her glands were so swollen that her neck and face kind of ran together. I called the doctor again and they said to come back in. The doctor (a new one) checked her out. Her temperature was 102.4 and the doctor said if she were older, she'd say it was Mono. Since she had been fevered for so long, the doctor said we needed to do blood work, so we took her to the hospital and had the blood work done. She cried pretty hard, but was otherwise very brave and sat very still. {By the way, holding your child while a needle is injected and blood is drawn is awful. I've had to do it with both kids and I really, really don't like it.} We grabbed lunch and headed home.

She was wiped out that afternoon and I gave her some more Motrin at 3 pm. Then all of a sudden, around 4 pm she was the same old happy HD. I wasn't sure if it was just the Motrin, but she seemed to be doing really well. She even ate dinner - for the first time since Friday night. I was hesitant to believe she was better, but put her to bed just like any other night - expecting a fever to spike around 9, after the Motrin wore off. But it never happened. She had a good night and no fever.

She's now been fever-free for almost 24 hours. And she's eaten breakfast and lunch today. We're thrilled about that! The blood work all came back normal - no Mono, no low blood sugar, nothing else that we were worried about. She is a bit anemic which may explain why it knocks her out so bad. I just checked her multivitamins and they don't have iron, so I'm going to go pick up some Flintstones (doctor recommended!) and see if that helps.

It's been a pretty sad week and we are glad that, for now, we are out of the woods. It still concerns me how often she gets sick, but for now we'll count our blessings that it was nothing more serious.