Scariest night ever

Well, maybe not the scariest night ever - the night Brandon ended up in the hospital in Louisianna, or the night a tornado hit our street in Sarasota might take that prize. But it was the scariest night I've had since becoming a mom. There's been a bunch of viruses going around lately according to our pediatrician. Lily was sick Monday and Tuesday, but she's recovered with a vengeance. But now Ella has something.

They called from school yesterday afternoon to tell me she'd thrown up in her class and was running a fever. I went to school right away and found her asleep in the nurses' office. She looked so little and pitiful. She dozed on the sofa for most of the rest of the day, throwing up one more time.

I put her to bed in my bed last night, and I woke up at 2am to find her boiling hot. I took her temperature, and it was 104.7. Yes, you read that right. So I dosed her up with advil and put her in a tub of lukewarm water, which she did not like at all. I left her in there for as long as I could bear seeing her cry and then tucked her back in my bed. I decided that if her fever hadn't dropped drastically within 30 minutes, we were headed to the hospital. At 2:30 it had gone down to 102. I never thought a fever of 102 would seem low.

I should add here that Ella has run a fever almost this high before. I called the on-call pediatrician, and she told me to do the advil and lukewarm bath. I decided to try it again this time before bolting off to the hospital. I didn't just make up the treatment on my own.

I tossed and turned the rest of the night, checking her temperature every half hour to make sure it didn't go back up, ready to put her in the car if necessary. It was a long, long night. When I told Brandon about it, he got upset that I hadn't woken him up so that he could worry with me. I said I had decided not to so that one of us could get a full night's sleep.

Ella is still puny, but her fever has only been 101 at the highest today. She's asleep in our bed again. I hope the worst of it is over.