Memorial Day Weekend (2013)

Last Friday evening, we left for Tony’s family mountain cabin. The usual strategy is to go through the bedtime routine, and then instead of nursing William in his room, I nurse him in the car.  Instead of falling asleep while nursing, he gets transferred into his car seat after nursing and then we drive off into the night while white noise plays over the speakers and I hold his hand.

It all went according to plan, and William was fine when we left.  He fell asleep in the car quietly holding my hand. We made good time going up the mountain and, bonus, I even got a bit of a snooze in.  When we arrived, William was in a deep sleep, so I carried him in and did a dream nursing session and then put him into the Pack N Play.  At 2:30 am I heard him softly talking to himself, not crying, just intermittently talking to himself. I checked the video monitor (yes, we travel with that thing), and he was lying on his back examining his fingers. I got up with the intent to nurse him back to sleep, even though he wasn’t crying. When I picked him up, he was burning with fever. He was so hot it felt like he was on fire. His temp was 102.9. Shocked, I woke Tony, we gave him Advil and changed his diaper and his jammies, and I nursed him and, then, thanks to having read that skin-to-skin is a body temp regulator, I held him close for 2 hours, nursing him off and on, until his fever started to go down.

We continued to treat his fever throughout the weekend, stacking Advil & Tylenol. His temp was normal on Monday, but Monday evening a cough developed and he started sneezing repeatedly, and he started running a low grade fever again. His appetite was good Saturday morning, but declined the rest of the weekend until the only thing he wanted to do is nurse and eat Mum-Mums. He spotted bananas, asked for some, and then sadly handed it back to me after he licked it… I guess it just didn’t taste good.

I took him to the doctor on Tuesday morning.  His ears, nose, throat, lungs were checked and given the “All Clear!”  The doctor said it’s viral. Said we should expect the cough to last 2 weeks, expect the fever to last 2-3 more days.  Doctor said to try chicken noodle soup.  I made turkey dinner in the crock pot instead, and William (all of us, actually) ate like it was Thanksgiving in May.  We love turkey!  Turkey for EVERYONE!

Oh, and other fun details? I forgot the cord to the monitor, so we had the camera, and then were turning the monitor off and on to preserve battery life. Great timing to forget the cord, huh?  Instead of staying the entire weekend, we left the cabin early, driving home on Sunday because William was so unhappy. On the drive home, the bolt fell out of the brake caliper on the driver’s side, so we had to wait 1.5 hours for AAA to send a flatbed trailer with an extended cab which could fit an infant seat so we could get home. Thankfully, remarkably, William napped through nearly the entire wait (He actually took 2 naps on Sunday for the first time since he was 10.5 months old). We took the less steep way home, giving elevation change consideration to William’s ears. If we had gone the steeper way, the brake issue would have been made known going down the mountain instead of the flats at the bottom (Tony uses the transmission to slow the descent when we go the back way.) And, miraculously, no damage was caused by the caliper, Tony just needs to replace the bolt.

I talked to our neighbor lady and her theory is that, if a little one isn’t feeling well (teething, etc.), then elevation changes can exacerbate things and cause higher fevers than normal in little ones because their Eustachian tubes aren’t yet fully developed.  All four of William’s canine teeth are breaking through his gums right now, so maybe she’s on to something. Who knows?

After relaying the story to my mom, she said, “I really hope you journaled about this adventure, because the whole story is kind of nuts!”  That just about sums it up nicely.  A nutty adventure with some sweet moments mixed in.

Pictures from the weekend can be found here:  LINK