What I've learned this weekend:
1. A rash and fever? Is a virus. But a rash that itches and swells is an allergic reaction to penicillin. And a dry cough from a baby in the midst of an allergic reaction will cause me to sit bolt upright in the middle of the night. Praise GOD for Halle, my nurse-turned-mother-of-multitudes friend, who told me that viral rashes aren't supposed to itch and swell, and that he needed Benadryl immediately. Please note I spoke to the on-call doctor twice over the weekend; why didn't she catch on?
2. I love my husband. The way to my heart is to stay up with the baby, knowing I'm not going to sleep either way, and that he's going to want me to hold him. Knowing that he'd worked the entire previous 72 hours, and had to be at his other job in another 5. Knowing he has the same cold I do. I love my husband.
3. Being reasonably well-educated and reasonably attentive to your child is not enough in medical situations. Once again I ask - how in the WORLD would I have ever known the difference between a viral rash (that had already been diagnosed) and an allergic reaction? Intuition alone is not reliable for distinguishing between one rash and another.
What a weekend.
5 comments:
Geeez Louise! I hope you are sleeping (all of you!) right now!
sorry that Asher is ill, but i hope you are all getting better and finding the chance to be thankful during this week! :-)
ohOHoh....I'm so sorry. Nina went through this numerous times with numerous things until we figured out it was the dye in the med that caused it, not the med itself. Very frightening. I hope you are able to rest a bit now....
However, I do suspect that you would have eventually gone to the ER and someone would have diagnosed the allergic reaction. It is impossible to know everything, and all you can hope to do is get the help you need (like calling your friend and asking). That's all the intuition you need, and you seem to have plenty of that.
Hope you get some more rest in the coming days.
i must say that brian is setting a bar for my future husband!
Post a Comment