Piper's First Bout With the Icks

That's is one pitiful looking Piper!

So, it finally happened.  After 16 months of waiting, Piper finally got sick for the very first time.  Sure, there was that time she ran a slight fever after one of her rounds of vaccinations, but that's not sick, that's just a typical reaction.  Friday August 8th , however, Piper actually came down with something.  I say something because I really don't know what caused her illness as I didn't rush her to the docs, it was over the weekend anyways.  She did feel like crap, though, and ran spiking high fevers, refused to eat hardly anything for four days, and took in a lot less fluids than usual.  Thank goodness I'm still nursing her or we might have ended up with a nasty case of dehydration on top of everything else.  Since it was her first "real" ick, I've determined that I should document it, of course, so here goes...Piper's first ick from beginning to end!

It all began on the 8th and it took her till mid-week the following week to really get back to her normal self. But that Friday she began running high fevers, upwards of 102-103 degrees at times, and just was feeling absolutely awful.  She wouldn't eat anything, she would barely drink anything, all she wanted to do was cry, whine, cuddle, and sleep...although the latter was restless and pretty much unproductive.  She didn't have any cold symptoms, no coughing, runny nose, sore throat.  Well, she coughed sometimes when choking on her own spit from crying, and her nose ran from that as well, but nothing indicated a summer cold.  She was a bit more clumsy than usual, and had been for a couple of weeks, so I thought maybe it was an ear infection because she did pull at her ears here and there.  The ear pulling wasn't regular, however, so that made me question that, too.  She also seemed to act, once in awhile, like she had a headache, holding her head and whimpering.  But who wouldn't have a headache when running a fever and feeling like crap?

Seriously, doesn't she look sad?

That weekend was absolute hell for all of us.  Saturday night her fever spiked to over 104 degrees and I ended up having to give her an emergency lukewarm bath in the middle of the night to try and bring it down. Don't get me wrong, I know young kids can handle extremely high temperatures, even 106 degrees won't kill them, although if it had ever gone that high I'd have gone to the ER, for sure!  So I didn't freak out about her high temps that much.  I was more concerned for her comfort than anything else.  I detest fevers, they make you feel so damn awful, and I didn't want my poor baby feeling that way.  Thankfully Tylenol and Advil (the generic kinds) worked to bring them down, but they never really dropped below 102 all weekend.  More often than not she was closer to 103.

The not eating or drinking much was the most worrisome part.  I know how easy it is for a toddler to become dehydrated, but she was taking in quite a bit of nutrition from me, as she definitely upped her nursing amounts.  I'm not sure if it was due to hunger and thirst or just for comfort, but mommy's magic boobies were a sanity saver throughout the whole weekend.  And since she wasn't vomiting nor faced with diarrhea, thank goodness for that, my milk was enough to keep her from potentially dangerous dehydration levels.

This is her once she noticed I was taking her pic
and trying her best not to look sick!

By that Sunday afternoon, I had determined that if she wasn't better by Monday morning I was going to take her into the docs office.  Being the nice mom that I am, I had a little chat with her about this matter.  Well, that seemed to do the trick. She woke up Monday morning with a fever just around 101 degrees, a very acceptable temp for a 16-month old.  By the way, it was her 16-month birthday that Sunday, such a horrible way to spend it!  Instead of heading immediately into work, I let her wake on her own, took her temp, fed her the first breakfast she'd eaten in days, and watched to see if her temp would spike again without meds. Luckily, they did not.  By noon I was at work, and she continued improving all week long.

She did have a spotted red rash that started on her face and moved down to her torso by Monday evening, and my mom had me worried it was the measles (her vaccinations for those were not scheduled until this past Tuesday, the 19th).  So I called the medical exchange, explained her symptoms, and they said it was most likely a viral rash, which has apparently been rampant around this area recently.  Since there is nothing you can do for a virus but wait it out, I relaxed and didn't worry about it as she was playing and in good spirits, especially in comparison to her weekend mood.  By Tuesday the rash was cleared up, so that was good.

Saddest sick eyes ever!

Oh, I need to backtrack.  I forgot to mention that that Sunday night she fell out of the bed around 4:30am.  It scared the living daylights out of both of us, but no bodily injuries occurred.   I guess she woke up and got turned around, as she is usually all up in my business, and simply crawled off the far side of the bed.  Mostly it just scared her, and thank goodness that was the extent of that incident.

She is cutting three molars right now.  She has one upper halfway in, another upper with one spike poking through, and then one of her lower ones it so on the brink of busting through you can feel all the cusps under the gum line.  I'm under the impression that most of everything she went through was due to these evil damn teeth!  It's just cruel to have to cut three big ole teeth all at once!  And she cuts teeth extremely slow, just like I did as a baby.  It'll probably take another month before they all fully break through her gums.  And then she'll start the process of cutting more.  I look forward to when all her baby teeth are already in, cause this cutting teeth thing just sucks.  Along with her other meds, I kept her dosed with Hyland's Teething Tablets because they are hands-down the best teething tablets on the market.  They have been saving my sanity and helping relieve some of Piper's teething pain since she was three-months old.

I'm happy to report that Piper is back to her usual antics.  She's been very lively, as imaginative and playful as always, and even though her appetite isn't quite back to normal, she is eating regularly again.  Honestly, i think she's just going through a picky eating phase right now.  That and her tummy probably shrunk up a bit while she was sick, so she just can't fit as much in right now.  I;m just relieved she is all better and we never had to go to the "sick" baby waiting area at the docs office.  I'm so thankful she's been so healthy and remains that way.  This was a very mild case of the icks, so I think I'm a lucky mom to have a child with a top-notch immune system.

And here she is putting on a brave face, again!

So, that abut sums up the entire crappy scenario.  Piper just had her 15-month check-up yesterday.  Yeah, it's a month late but I had to wait for my insurance to change over at my new job.  No biggie.  But I'm not going to get into all that right now, because I'm working on another post that will focus on her current stats, both mentally and physically, and will compare them to the norms for her age to show where she's right on target and where she's knocking the ball out of the park.  I think it will be a fun little side-by-side comparison of expected milestones vs. reality.

I once again would like to apologize to my fans for the lack of posts recently.  It's amazing how time flies when you're working hard during the day and playing hard at night.  I dedicate my evenings to Piper, she always comes first, and the blog unfortunately gets put on the back-burner at times when life has me running at full tilt.  I'm going to try and do better, but I won't promise anything.  Right now my goal is at least two posts a month from now on, more if I can and less if I can't.  But that's my goal, cause I do want to keep documenting Piper's life, and this is one of the best ways I know how.

Here's a sneak peek at the next blog post!

I'll leave you all for now and start getting on the other post I promised.  I'm so going to try and get more photos in next post, but right now Piper just doesn't stand still...at all!  So unless i have the fancy cam handy, most of my pics from the cell are coming out blurry.  Luckily when she was sick, she sat still for a moment and let me capture her moping moments for this post.

Until next time, I still appreciate your votes on Top Baby Blogs and Top Mommy Blogs.  Also, feel free to check out my other social media sites, FB being the most active as I try and post there daily.  Hope you all have a great rest of the week, and thanks for sticking with me even though the slow-downs.  It really means a lot!



  

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