The leak is one of those dumb builder stories, really. Apparently when the builders were putting in the picture frame moulding in our formal living room, they nailed one of the sections to a copper pipe in the wall, so we've been slowly leaking water for a year and a half. On Friday, I guess the water finally corroded the nail/pipe enough that it started spewing water, thus soaking the drywall and the floor. The builder agreed to take care of it (after all, it WAS their fault), but we did have the headache of having to turn off our water to the whole house, plus Claire's playroom has been disbanded and scattered throughout the house! Next week, they're going to send someone out to clean the carpet, replace the pad, clean the insides of the wall, replace the drywall, texture, paint, and re-mould.
On the phantom fever, a week before the 4th weekend, Claire woke up with a fever so I stayed home with her. The fever ran through all of Friday, all of Saturday, and into Sunday morning, during which Claire was cranky, clingy, and all-around grumpy. Plus, it caused us to miss StrollerFit (now that I'm feeling well enough to go again!), swimming, AND Evan's birthday party! Not to mention the fact that it never even manifested into anything ... just a fever that hovered between 99 and 101 for 48 hours.
So, this Friday (yes, exactly one week later) it happened again! Claire woke with a fever, but luckily both James and I had the day off from work so that I didn't have to try and work around meetings and such. Of course, we canceled our plans to attend the Castle Hills parade, BBQ, and fireworks and nursed the baby all day. Luckily, that night, the fireworks happened to be set off practically in our front lawn, so we were able to enjoy that after the sun went down.
The fever burned between 99 and 101-ish (underarm, which means it was probably even higher) from Friday morning through Saturday, so finally we decided to take her to the Acute Kids to see if there was anything obvious that should be addressed. I would have hated to have her in pain for something dumb like an ear infection or strep even if she wasn't showing symptoms.
Acute Kids -- which I LOVE, btw -- said that her ears, nose, and throat all looked great. They did think that perhaps the reason the fever didn't go down is because we might not be dosing Claire enough. Since Claire wasn't yet 2 or 24 lbs, it said "ask your doctor", so I'd been doing 0.8 of the Infant Tylenol since that's what the doctor had prescribed before during the well-baby visits. The Acute Kids doctor suggested we try 1 tsp of Tylenol alternating with 1 tsp of Motrin every three hours. Other than that, there was nothing obviously wrong with Claire and to watch her to make sure it didn't escalate. The doc did ask if Claire was a daycare baby because she had seen a few cases of daycare babies coming in with no other symptoms. *shrug* She also said that it probably wasn't teething because teething wouldn't result in a fever higher than a 101 which Claire was when we went into Acute Kids.
We started that regimine on Saturday afternoon and continued it through Sunday night. Not sure how well it was working, though, because the fever at one point overnight was 103 (she was glowing heat from her whole body) and then finally extinguished after one last 4am dose Monday in the wee hours of the morning.
Claire went to school on Monday, and they said she was okay. On Tuesday when I picked her up (having been fever-free for two days now), I noticed her torso was a little mottled. Not a rash, exactly, just kind of speckled, but nothing else was wrong. Of course, tons of things ran through my head (ie "is she getting enough oxygen?! Maybe she's air-starved!"), and James did a very good Google to find Roseola. Of course, we quickly self-diagnosed and called it true. :) All of the symptoms were the certainly the same.
The sites that we read said that Roseola is contagious prior to any symptoms actually appearing (a fever, in our case), so there's no reason not to send her to school. The mottled thing lasted another day or so, during which the school noted that Claire was exceptionally quiet and didn't want to play with other kids (she would actually make it a point to play by herself). Thursday I picked her up, and she was a lot better, and this morning (Friday, 7/10), she seems back to her normal self. Whew!
2 comments:
Glad to hear that you finally diagnosed the phantom fever! Praying for a happy baby this weekend :)
Sorry about your leak, what a headache. Walt keeps telling me he doesn't want to buy another old house. So I keep finding bad builder stories to tell him.
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