Ella spent half of Easter Sunday down with a fever. Being the good parent and former teacher I am, I was set to adhere to the 24 hour fever-free rule, even though Easter night, she was wearing bunny ears, a tutu and fairy wings while dancing around the house.
However, come Monday morning, it was clear that she wasn't fever free. Ella woke up and walked straight over to the couch to set up shop. Loran brought Lily to school and Ella and I just hung out, watched shows, read books, and chatted. Around the time we were to pick Lily up, Ella was in good spirits again, up and about, playing with her toys - I was starting to think we were past the fever! But, in the car after picking up Lily, a glance in the mirror revealed one curly-haired girl talking a mile a minute about her day: Ashlyn, building skyscrapers, painting, swings... The other girl was losing steam and could barely keep her eyes open. We went home to rest. Ella fell right to sleep. I could tell she was getting hotter and hotter. When she awoke a couple hours later, I took her temperature. She registered in at a hearty 105.1. Her temp had been flirting with 105, but had mostly been hanging out in the 102 range. Poor girl was so hot, so sweaty and just shivering. Leaving me with the quandary: cover her with a blanket or not? Well, no one likes to be shivery-cold so I gave her a blanket. After consulting with my mom, I decided to bring her to urgent care, because it was now after hours for her doctor, of course. Loran met us there and Ella was seen. I had given her Tylenol when she awoke from her nap, so her fever was already coming down a bit when they saw her. They gave her quite the run-down of tests. CBC (from a finger prick), where they remarked that Ella was braver than most adults they see, no tears. I think she was more grumpy that they put a bandage on her finger. She was swabbed for strep in her throat, swabbed for influenza up her nose, checked for a bladder infection (where I got to collect the sample - yay me?) and we removed that pesky bandage. Along with the usual ear, nose and throat check. All of those samples, and no answers. Nothing showed up other than a slight elevation in white blood cells that fight bacteria, but nothing definitive. Ella and Lily are on the fence about being doctors now that they know they have to deal with your blood, boogers and pee. On the other hand, so do I and I don't even have a doctorate to hang on my wall, just some stretch marks. Hmm...
Since the urgent care staff was running short on ideas, but clearly Ella had a fever, the referred us to Dell Children's Hospital. On our way out of the urgent care, we ran into a member of our small group through church, it was so nice to see a familiar face during this time.
While I'd like to think I was calm, cool and collected...I wasn't. At least not on the inside. Loran was completely with it. We went home, he started packing a bag for a potential overnight stay (having been on this roller coaster before) and I was kind of dazed. I removed my contacts and put glasses on. I had that much going in my head. However, the rest of my head space was filled with thoughts that the urgent care had seen something worrisome and we were headed to Dell to find out our child had cancer or something. Isn't that how every Lifetime movie starts? I was bracing myself. Meanwhile, Ella who was now also hopped up on ibuprofen she'd received at the clinic was bouncing around, eating everything in sight and generally happy.
We solemnly drove to Dell, parked and checked in. We waited with the other parents with sickly little children. Always a depressing place to be, even late at night. Finally we were triaged, where lo and behold, Ella had no fever or symptoms. Classic. We were called back a short time later and Ella still had no fever and plenty of spunk. After all that, I would have liked to have seen some triple digits on the thermometer. We were seen by a great doctor who spent a lot of time with us. He did see some pus on Ella's tonsils, so ordered a second throat culture. Ella wasn't excited about this and kept asking if we could go home. But, the nurse initially thought she would have to run an IV line, so at least we were dodging that bullet. The rapid test came back negative again and we were finally discharged close to midnight with some extra fever info, a prescription for Zofran and a clean bill of health - besides fever. On our drive home, we passed another hospital. I asked Ella if she wanted to stop for more tests, she was not amused. However, Lily was quick to volunteer Ella. That's what sisters are for!
It says: Ella Gutt. Diagnosis: awesomeness. Can we go home now?
What? This gown is open in the back?!
Past our bedtimes!
Tuesday, both girls stayed home. Ella with a very low fever, and Lily so she could rest up after our adventurous night. Ella's slight fever diminished on its own fairly quickly, and the Ella we all know and love started to return. Ella took a hearty nap on the couch, while Lily bounded around being a little pest. Then Lily settled onto the couch to rest and, of course, Ella's eyes popped open and Lily drifted off to sleep. I did catch a few minutes of rest.
As Lily slept, the sky darkened and a storm rolled in. Ella was pretty nervous about this and kept right by my side. She insisted that we turn every single light on so it wouldn't be dark, it also lessened the affect of the lightning. I tried to set her up with a show to distract her, but the power kept blinking. Not enough for us to lose power, just enough to turn the tv off. Eventually, we gave up on watching a show after the fourth flicker, opting instead to unplug the entire setup before we fried our television. Lily slept through the entire storm, except when she rolled off the couch...I got her settled down and she fell back to sleep amidst the thunder and pouring rain. Ella and I watched the storm. The apartment yard turned into a rushing river and the tiny, mostly dried up stream at the golf course turned into an angry river, overflowing its banks and coming over the golf cart bridge. It was fun to watch with Ella.
Now I see why flash flooding is a thing.
That's usually just grass.
Wednesday, Ella and Lily were off to school again. In my haze of not having to drop Ella off in nearly a week, I completely blanked on what time we had to leave to get everyone to their classrooms on time. I was thinking about Lily's drop-off, so suddenly when it clicked in my head that we needed to GO, the girls were hardly dressed. I got Ella to school ten minutes late, had to park and check her in at the office, but, since the older children were doing their state tests, no visitors were allowed past the office. I couldn't walk Ella down the hall to her class. I pushed her out the office door and pointed down the hall, she just turned around and stared at me through the glass walls with a blank look on her face. I was full body motioning for her to walk down the hall. Deer in headlights look. Finally, the secretary, realizing that we were going no where fast - literally, called Ella's teacher and asked her to step into the hall. Ella finally recognized someone and shuffled the 30 feet to her class. Off Lily and I went! She was also late, so I pulled into the now empty drop-off loop, parked and got Lily out. I was going to walk her down the path to her classroom. About 10 feet down the path, Lily stops, turns to me and give me a little shoo with her hand. Seriously, my three year old shooed me away. One child won't walk down an elementary school hall without me and the other will venture through a garden and trees to her building without hesitation.
I kept a close eye on my phone all day, thinking the mystery fever would appear again. No phone call came. I also expected that Ella would be out of energy at the end of her school day and ready to go home and nap, that didn't happen either. Ella came bounding out the door, big smile, happy to be back at school! As sneakily as it appeared, the fever crept away. The full strep culture also came back negative, so now we know Ella is healthy after all of the prodding, poking and swabbing she's had done.
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