It seems like we’ve been plagued with sickness lately. Missus and I got COVID a week before our vacation and were forced to cancel our Hawaii trip. Younger was home from school for two weeks because I didn’t feel like pushing her school nurse to let her go back – neither of the girls had any symptoms, but their respective school nurses seemed to have varied interpretations of the school’s policies.
So we had a great Memorial Day, although I overdid it, the girls were back on schedule and ready to go to school Tuesday morning. Then I got a call from Younger’s nurse before lunch. She was complaining about a sore throat and had a “low grade fever”. I’d heard that so many times this school year already I’d begun to think that the nurse was using a broken thermometer just to get kids out of the school. Younger loves playing hooky and seems to have mastered getting out of school. But no, this time she was really sick.
Missus was at work with the car so I rode my bike to the school, holding the handlebar of Younger’s bike awkwardly as I rode. I picked her up, she was miserable, and we managed to make it home in the ninety degree heat. I checked her temperature and it was 104. I had already skipped out of my meetings for the day, so I spent the rest of the day administering to her, giving her ibuprofen and chicken soup, trying to get her to stay hydrated. She finally fell asleep on me around 2PM.
She woke up for a bit around dinner then went back to bed at her normal time. I turned in early after finishing The Dawn of Everything, and she woke up early in the morning, so I went to lay back down with her in bed. I came back to my bed, and she woke up again, Missus went with her.
She woke up this morning still sick, I gave her a hot bath and got a reading of 106 on the infrared thermometer, so I called the pediatrician. He wanted a rectal reading, but her temp had already come back down to 103 so I told him we’d keep pushing fluids. Now her and Missus are laid out on the couch watching TV.
I have got to get some work done today, so she’s taking a turn today.