Monday, August 28, 2006

Times That Try Parents' Souls

My daughter is getting much better. Her fever, that nasty thing that had been hovering like a helicopter between 101 and 105 degrees Fahrenheit for the past five days finally broke yesterday. It's quite a relief. There's very little in this word that cuts you deep like when this little person who loves and adores you and thinkgs you can fix or right anything cries and pleads for help feverishly - in this case literally - and there is not one damned thing you can do.

Oh, you can lower the fever. Yet that just prolongs the agony because the body needs that to wipe out that nasty virus that is infecting her perfect little self. You can search desperately for foods that she will eat. When she is sick, you're SOL as far as her appetite. Foods she normally loves are painful to eat - that sore throat from the drippage of her overwhelmed normally cute and now uber slimy nose makes it rather difficult. Even if you find SOMETHING she will eat, it's nothing in the total amount of vitamins, calories, minerals or other necessities to keep her going. You can see she's losing weight. In fact, she lost two pounds. In five days. We did find that she would eat ice cream and, even though you could see that it hurt her, popcorn. She also ate a little bit of chicken. She wouldn't touch almost anything else. She wanted milk, but we couldn't give it to her. She had diarhea too. *sighs*

What's worse is that under stress and sickness, her personality changed. A lot. She went from our delightfully outgoing, playful, cute, and curious little girl to someone that was unhappy, lethargic, and obviously in pain. Nothing interested her. Nothing could catch her attention. Well, almost nothing. Nemo did. We turned on _Find Nemo_ out of desperation for something that would interest her more than just screaming or crying or being fussy. Playing with her didn't help, just being held and even that only lasted a little while. A little fish, a little snuggling, and a lot of love did help though. Now we have to endure "NEMONEMONEMONEMO!!!!" A smaller price, a much smaller one.

At any rate, she's better though. Still congested, but no fever. My little girl's personality is back and then some. We went back to the Dr's yesterday after such a prolonged fever. They gave us an antibiotic. She's better.

We're happier.




No comments: