We had our first substantial run-in with sickness this past week. To some degree, it’s pretty impressive it took this long. Meg’s teachers had all commented how she’s the only student in her class of 20 that had not missed a day of school since it began last Fall. That isn’t to say she hasn’t had a runny nose or anything, but she certainly hasn’t run a fever. Even Brooke and I have both come through thus far unscathed, again, aside from the aforementioned runny nose or cough.
Traditionally, my immune system has been pretty great. I’ll come down with an affliction from time to time, but it seems to be pretty rare. If I recall, I’ve had a fever exactly once in the last 3 or 4 years, and it lasted for a few hours one afternoon. So far, it appears that Meg has taken after me, at least to a degree. She has certainly gotten sick before, but she’s around a lot of kids at her preschool (inside an elementary school…) and she hasn’t come down with anything (knock on wood).
But as I’ve written before, the Demon Baby Disease is one you don’t always see coming. And this past week, it struck the one person in this post I haven’t mentioned yet:
Calvin.
This presents a few additional difficulties compared with last time around. First of all, Meg was born in March, so by the time we hit the Winter cold and flu season, she was already 8-10 months old. Calvin turned 4 months last week. So, he hasn’t been exposed to nearly as much as Meg had at this stage in the year. Secondly, it’s a little bit easier to determine what’s wrong (i.e. “where does it hurt?”) in an 8-10 month old than it is in a 4 month old. Thirdly, we have a second child that has somewhere to be, let alone our schedules with our jobs and other engagements.
All we knew about Calvin is that he was fussy last Sunday. This was followed by a fever that started early Monday morning. Fever means “no school,” but thankfully, it was Martin Luther King Day, so Meg was off school anyway. I went in to work for awhile that morning while Brooke stayed home, as her son was having his first semi-serious illness. Dealing with a sick baby and a(n almost) 4 year old can be trying, for sure, but it was made worse by the weather on Tuesday, when they cancelled school…so Meg was out again. That day, I went in crazy early and left late morning so Brooke could go in that afternoon. Wednesday, Meg could go back to school, but Brooke had to teach that morning, so I loaded up Calvin, took Meg to school, and then brought him back home until Brooke could arrive so I could go in for a few hours.
During this whole time, Calvin had a fever and a productive cough that was getting more pronounced. The fever was kinda “on and off,” where it’d get better during the day, and then rear its ugly head overnight. Brooke was the trooper for most nights, staying upstairs with him as he’d only attempt to eat from her directly and wouldn’t take a bottle from me. Really, he wasn’t eating much at all, but he was drooling enough to suggest that he wasn’t dehydrated. She took him to an Urgent Care clinic on Monday evening and they said it was a virus of some kind, so he’d just have to work through it.
By Thursday, though, he’d had a fever for (effectively) 4 days, so Brooke took him to our pediatrician. He had also developed a very minor rash on his chest, still have a 102 F fever, and via chest x-ray, apparently had early signs of pneumonia. Great.
[That last bit we didn’t know until Friday after the radiologist had looked at the scans and talked with Calvin’s pediatrician].
On my way home Friday, I picked up some antibiotics to hopefully take care of pneumonia. If you didn’t know, there’s a viral form and a bacterial form, the latter of which is more common. If the antibiotics were effective, he’d have to have bacterial pneumonia.
Thankfully, that’s what he had. As of Saturday, he was almost back to normal. His sleeping schedule is still a little bit off and his eating is steadily improving, but importantly, he’s just acting like a happy baby again. No more constant and incessant moaning and whimpering. He still has a cough, but he doesn’t get nearly as mad about it anymore, and can lull himself back to sleep after he wakes up briefly. All in all, we’re mostly back to normal. Finally.
Nana and Papa came in to visit on Saturday, which was a big help for everyone. Some much-needed “distraction” for Meg and another set of arms to hold Calvin. All in all, a good visit and just in time to help Brooke and I re-adjust ourselves after a long week of half-days at work and half-nights of sleeping.
Let’s just hope this is the last time we deal with D.B.D. for 2014…