We took his temperature and it was only 100.1. Per the book, for babies over 6 months you don't need to call the doctor until it's 100.5 or higher, so I gave him some Tylenol and we went about our morning. He did play this morning and ate a good breakfast, but was very lethargic, frequently laying his head down, had a runny nose, and his coughs almost had him in tears a couple times.
Since I had a dentist appointment at 9:40 (my mouth is still numb, by the way), I planned to check his temperature at 8:45 and go ahead and take him to Donna's if it hadn't gone down. Then I would see how he was doing at lunchtime. Well, that plan lasted about 5 minutes.
I knew via Facebook that Kate and Lakely had both gotten sick since the weekend, so I emailed Julie and Lea for the scoop on symptoms, doctors visits, prognoses, etc. Julie called and told me that not only did Finley have a double ear infection, but Kate went in on Monday with the same symptoms as Charlie and was put on a breathing treatment and scheduled for a follow-up Thursday to determine whether or not she has bronchiolitis. Obviously, I immediately called the pediatrician with visions of prolonged illness in my head and got an appointment for 11:40 (first available).
After I dropped Charlie off at Donna's, it just got worse. I came home to pump and looked up bronchiolitis in the baby book and found out that it is commonly caused by RSV, which leads to asthma in 50% of kids. Plus, the following article was about croup and detailed the process whereby a baby's air passages can become so swollen that they stop breathing altogether! Needless to say, I was a bit tense as I rushed off to the dentist.
I made it home just in time to pick up Charlie and find out that he'd continued coughing throughout the morning and only napped for 45 minutes. We had a quick lunch and were off to the pediatrician. Like any cautious (aka paranoid) mom, we stood in the middle of the waiting room to avoid touching anything. After a short wait, I detailed Charlie's symptoms to Dr. Rodgers, while Charlie laughed and smiled flirted with the nurses. The doctor listened to his chest, checked his ears, and gave me the news: Charlie has a cold.
The wheezing is just in his upper air passages, and he'll likely eat a bit less than normal and more frequently, since he'll opt to breathe rather than eat. I know what to watch out for as far as nostrils flaring, rapid breathing, etc, but bottome line: it's just a cold.
Now part of me feels borderline munchausen by proxy, but the silver lining to the whole adventure is that FedEx delivered a new batch of flu shots to the pediatrician's office just today. I explained to Dr. Rodgers how Charlie had received his first round but was at the bottom of a very long list for the second, and we got Charlie's second round vaccine!
So I've learned two lessons today. First, I am a bit of a hypochondriac when it comes to my baby boy, and second, sometimes it pays off to make unnecessary visits to the doctor during flu season.
Oh so sick...
