Admitted Baby, Confused Mommy

Last Wednesday, May 25 2011, my little Keisha came home from spending some time at her lola's place (which was like 5 minutes away from our house). I touched her hand, and her forehead, and she felt kind of hot. The mommy instinct in me insisted that the little one is running a fever.

I took her temperature when she was asleep that night, and true enough, it was in the 38 °C range. I wasn't too bothered by this at that time, and just gave her paracetamol. She had a cold after all, and I thought then that the increase in temperature was just normal because of that.


 

Her fever went down after an hour or two, so I was able to catch a couple of hours of sleep. I woke up at 5am to check on her again, and felt that she was still running a fever. I lunged at our thermometer and saw that it was still somewhere around 38 °C.

That's when I started to worry. Come morning, and after another dose of paracetamol, the little girl looked well. She was playing and making kulit again. She had her siesta around 2pm, and I noticed she was, again, feverish.We brought her to the ER as I really had a bad feeling about it, and according to the pedia on duty there, her throat was really red, but her CBC results looked clear.

They wanted to admit her right then and there to be observed, but hubby said no. He believed we can deal with the fever at home, and he did not find any immediate reason for her to be hospitalized. Mahihirapan lang sya (she'll have a more difficult time) if we stay in the hospital, because she'll be forced to have a dextrose on, and for kids, that isn't actually fun.

This went on until Friday. Her temperature climbs to the 38-38.6 range, I give her Tempra, she gets well and plays, and runs a fever again come night time. This became too much for me to bear, so I brought her to her pedia at a clinic on Friday afternoon.

According to her pedia, it looks like the little girl has a viral infection. She checked the throat and lymph nodes and she said the latter was swollen and the former was very red, classic signs of some sort of 'viral' infection. I told her about the recurring fever and our rushing her to the ER. She said it was normal to panic, and I told her it's because Keisha hasn't been sick since she turned one so it was definitely an unexpected occurrence for me.

At the time we were at the clinic, she didn't have a fever.

She told me to continue with the paracetamol and the colds medicine that I was already giving her (Disudrin). And so I did. She said she wouldn't advise to have a blood test done just yet, if we were afraid of dengue, as it was too early on. And since Keisha just had her CBC the night before, I agreed with her.

Come night time, when my baby went to sleep around 8pm (this was earlier than normal. Even then I knew she wasn't feeling too good.), I kept checking on her temperature, and when the thermometer showed 39.9, I immediately called her yaya.

Acting on the pedia's advice that it's ok to give kids a quick bath with lukewarm water if the temperature is too high, we woke up Keisha and brought her to the bathroom. After a couple of buhos of lukewarm water, I immediately saw the relieved look in her eyes. True enough, once dressed, she started playing again, and her temperature was already normal.

But I wasn't one to be easily convinced things were okay when I saw her playing. I was afraid that when she sleeps again, she'll run another fever.

True enough, it happened. I did the usual, round the clock paracetamol, and sponge baths. But come morning, I asked hubby to come home early (he's on night shift) and argued with him that it's time to bring her to the ER again. The recurring fever for three days and two nights isn't a good sign at all. 

The very next day, I took her to the ER, and the doctors convinced us that it was really best to have her admitted. We agreed. I felt my heart break when I saw the nurses insert the IV needle on her sweet little hand for her dextrose. But at the same time, I also felt proud as she didn't even cry (she did wince though.), my brave little princess. :-)

Most of Saturday, she just slept, probably making bawi the three nights she barely had quality sleep due to her high temperature. Thankfully, she didn't run a fever the entire day and night. Come morning though, to our surprise, I saw some rashes on her tummy. 

We immediately told the nurses, and we were told to just observe if the rashes will continue to spread after giving her a quick bath. It didn't. But sometime in the afternoon, I saw that her tummy rashes had subsided, but she then had some on her face. 

Fortunately though, she didn't have any fever, and her rashes subsided after a few hours. But still, I was a bit worried. I was a bit surprised with the diagnosis, what seemed to be a simple three-day fever, flu-like in many ways, was: BASAL PNEUMONITIS and ROSEOLA INFANTUM (tigdas hangin). I was a bit surprised that she was diagnosed with pneumonitis as she wasn't even coughing (though she did have a cold). 

As for the tigdas hangin, my likely suspect is the measles vaccine she got from the health center a week before she got sick. :( The doc told me it was possible, BUT, normally, measles-like symptoms due to measles vaccine show up after around two weeks, not a week after. 

Haaaay..... The info I got vs. what Keisha went though was a bit confusing, but I had to believe them. They were doctors after all. I was just thankful that my little one got through it, and that after three days at the hospital, and five days of meds, she was back to her normal, jolly self...as if she was never sick at all. :-)

Here's a picture of my little girl at the hospital, sick, but not looking it:

Thanks for reading!