Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Too tired to sleep

I'm on three hours sleep today.
Hopefully, I'll get a crisis free block of time during which I can nap heartily, otherwise, I'm toast.
We ended up at the hospital last night after Elizabeth's temp spiked up to 104.8 and after an hour, and a dose of Tylenol, only went down to 104.5. Of course, I freaked out.
Her high fever, my natural Virgo tendency to worry myself sick and her newfound penchant for a never ending moan-cry sent us all to the hospital in what I figure was 35 degree weather last night.
We were only there three hours, but with a cranky feverish baby and a cranky sleepy husband and a fetus kicking my intestines, it was the longest three hours of my whole life.
The nurses there gave Elizabeth a magic potion called Motrin, and 104.8 became 96.5 by midnight. It was like Cinderella and the pumpkin coach, except the pumpkin coach was a fever and instead of reappearing, it disappeared. Give me a break, three hours sleep here.
So anyway, they discharge us and we head to the 24-hour WalMart to buy some magic Motrin. Upon arriving home, Elizabeth went to bed cool and happy. Bob and I went to bed exhausted and well, exhausted.
Cut to 4:30 a.m. Elizabeth starts whining in her room. I get up. She's BURNING hot. I bring her into my room. I try to give her Motrin, she spits it out all over MY bed.
I am officially awake now.
I get her to drink some juice before she passes out again. Her temp is just shy of 103. I sleep for maybe another 45 minutes before she starts whining again. I can't blame her, she's hot as an oven.
Bob and I double team her and get some Motrin into her system. The whole time she's saying "No, no, no. NO! Wait! Wait wait wait! No!"
This breaks my heart.
So we're both awake now, it's almost 8 a.m. Elizabeth has been drinking juice, eating yogurt and waffles, coloring pictures and watching the Wiggles. I've been fighting to stay awake, drinking coffee, and running a mediocre defense to counter her fevered toddler offense.
At last check, she was at just under 102 degrees, which is good, but not the magic fix I was hoping for when I threw down $10 last night for the Motrin.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed though.
Wish me luck, and sleep. And a shower.

7 comments:

Hilary & Greg said...

My gosh! Jessey it sounds like you are getting all the bad things out of the way, and pretty soon there will be nothing but sunshine and kittens in your life. And 96.8-degree babies. Let us know how Elizabeth is doing later on!

P.S. I say you blame WalMart (a.k.a. The Devil) for that stuff not working. They probably watered it down, believing it was a drug and therefore sinful.

Jessica said...

Damn pharmaceutical companies!
It actually seems to have started to kick in here this morning, she's resting comfortably, and I am two seconds away from joining her in dreamland!

Hilary & Greg said...

Well now, it's not ALWAYS like that, now is it? Don't give the boy the wrong idea!

eva said...

Darling, I hope my L'il E is doing better now. Poor little pumpkin. I get cranky when I get a hangnail. Further proof I'm not mommy-material and you're a goddamn saint to put up with all this. Hang in there, tough girl!
P.S. Updated the blog per your demands. Check it out!

cube said...

Pharmaceutical companies go to great lengths & expense to make their meds exactly to specifications.

I think the reason why Motrin worked so well at the hospital was because she had Tylenol in her system. Motrin & Tylenol together are allowed if the fever is high & unresponsive to just one of the two meds.

I used to stagger them with my kids. Tylenol on an empty stomach. Motrin when they've eaten (or if
you take it with milk). The combination works very well.

Hope this helps.

Jessica said...

That is EXACTLY what the ER doc told us and so we are totally drugging up our baby now, to fairly good results.
I'm mostly just afraid of her getting febrile seizures. The fever itself I can handle, I think I would flip out if she had a seizure though.

cube said...

Febrile seizures occur when there is a sustained, very high fever. That's why it's important to keep the temp from spiking too high.