What a relief!!

We had a scary and worrisome weekend recently as Ethan was down with a very high fever due to a throat infection...his temperature shoot up to 40.7 C the highest on Monday and 40.5C on Tuesday!! It was such a heart wrenching and tension moments for both me and hubby especially seeing our precious Ethan shivering and crying when his body temperature went very high...it was even scary when we felt and saw his feet and hands turned cold and blueish...we worked like mad sponge bathing him and kept hugging and consoling my poor baby :( The shivering moments started on Sunday so we brought him to SMC as his paed was on holiday. But since he had only been feverish for a day, no antibiotic was prescribed. But I was pissed off because when my mum asked me if the doctor checked his throat, I realised he didn't do so. I almost kick myself for not realising it but I was worry about him at that moment that I forgotten all about that..was busy describing his conditions to the doctor and the type of medicines he is already on etc...probably the doctor forgotten to do so as I was busy talking to him... though I remembered he did used the stethoscope to check Ethan's chest...it made me think perhaps if he did check his throat he may have detected the throat infection earlier and given him the proper medicines..sigh...my bad for not noticing it...

Anyway, as his conditions did not improve much, I called RMC for advice that evening as Ethan's fever did not get better even with the fever meds...the nurse told me the same thing i.e. keep sponge bathing him and told me even if we bring him to RMC they will give the same meds as what the SMC' doctor gave...the nurse told me that we should wait till the next day to see the Paed...we did and the Doctor told us that Ethan's throat was red and throat infection was the culprit for his very high fever. Antibiotic was given but the only thing was that it takes about 2-3 days for it to take effect!!. So you can imagine how the conditions were like in between then!! Ethan of coz still had high fever even when the fever medicine was not due yet...that was when his feet and palms will turn cold and pale and we had to work really fast to keep his body temperature down! At one point, I just don't know what to do seeing the temperature reaching 40.7C that I quickly brought him to the bathroom and showered him with luke warm water as I remembered one of my ex-colleague did with her son. But last night I got a lecture from my mum. She reminded me that never ever shower a child with very high fever coz even if the temperature did go down, it will back fire and the fever will get even worst! This was told to her by our paed when we were still kiddos. I've totally forgotten about that as I was panicking then. Instead I should keep sponge bathing him with tepid water. Wipe him with wet towel especially his head, neck, behind his knees, armpits etc...As the water evaporates it will give a cooling effect to the body thus keep the temperature down...but as his fever still didn't really go down, we've decided to soak his feet in luke warm water as advised by SIL. As the temperature went down below 40C, and he stopped shivering and his feet and hands turned pinkish again and he seems better, we filled his bath tub with some water, sat him down and sponge bath him while he watch tv or rather the Mickey Mouse DVD which we borrowed from my big bro. He was happy watching the DVD while we both still working hard to keep him body temperature back to normal. At times it took about 45 minutes but the longest we had was around 5 hours on Tuesday evening. It was from around 4pm till almost 10pm. The worst was when his temperature went down but lingered around 38.5C for a while and then shoot up again to 40.5C!! We were like holly cow what's going on!! And we had to wait till the time is right to insert the Voren suppository in his annus and that was like another 2 hours more!! Called SIL again and she said we can give him earlier which we did in no time!! Even so we still had to work hard as the medicine will only kicks in after 45min - 1 hr!! So again you can imagine the madness we had to go through...Ethan was a bit weak then....but thank goodness he still has appetite for milk and asked for it...he felt asleep while taking his milk while we continue to sponge bath...I even called the RMC doctor to tell her the situation and she also said we need to keep his temperature low by sponge bathing till the next medicine dose is due and his temperature goes down. I was thinking isn't there anything else we could do for goodness sake cause it was really heart breaking to see Ethan like that!! But of cause that is the only thing we can do...we kept sponge bath him and kept praying at the same time and thank God the temperature did go down after an hour and Ethan woke up and started baby talking to us again. We were so happy but we had to continue sponge bathing him as his temperature was still high...thank goodness also that was the last time Ethan shivered due to the high fever as the Augmentin antibiotic took effect...his temperature was ok and only had mild fever that night till this morning...we were so thankful and relief that the worst is over...although he had a few shivering moments, in between he was still as cheeky and active as usual...well, that's our cheeky boy hehehe....his appetite was good till yesterday till today...but at least his appetite for his milk is very good. In fact, he asks for more milk then the normal days now...This morning although he seemed a bit less active probably because he was still asleep when we carried him to the car...but he seemed better as he reached my PIL's home. So after waiting for a while just to see his condition, we went back to work after 3 days of emergency leave. When I called MIL just now, Ethan was active though he still have mild fever now and then...but it is much better than the past 3 days...thank God for that...ok time to make a move..will continue later...