It's all about the details: Madison update…Flu bug is gone :)

What a long week this has already been with Madison sick with the flu. It all started wee hours of the morning on….

{Friday} Madison waking up with fever of 101.7 and burning up. She had all the flu like symptoms: chills, fever, headache, lethargic. She stayed in bed all day between my bed and the couch depending on where I was in the house that’s where she wanted to be. She watched t.v. and had NO energy to do much of anything else. The only thing on the menu for her was Chicken Noodle soup for lunch and dinner. For the most part Motrin was helping with controlling the fever and help bringing it down.

{Saturday} pretty much the same thing woke up with fever of 102.9 at 6:00 a.m. Gave a dose of Motrin and she went on back to sleep and slept until noon. When she woke up her fever was down to 99.0 and it had fluctuated up and down until 5:30 pm where it spiked back up to 102. Gave another dose of Motrin (every 6-8 hours) and her fever has been down to almost normal now. I called the Doctor's office today and the Dr. on call called me back and we discussed what I should do, if I should take her to Patient's First or wait until Monday to get a Dr.'s appt. He told me that was totally up to me, but if she was diagnosed with the Flu there was really nothing that they could prescribe to her I would basically just be going for the diagnosis. Then he stated that what I was doing at home with the meds I was giving to her was the same thing that they would recommend me to do. I asked with all the symptoms she has does he think it is the flu or the swine flu? He stated that right now if your diagnosed with the flu--chances are it is the swine flu since the seasonal flu hasn’t even began yet. YIKES!! (He also mentioned that he had just seen 7 kids from our county with the flu that same day. I was totally unaware that they were open half day on Saturday or I would have taken her that morning) I then asked about Tamiflu and he said they don't usually prescribe that for the flu unless its a child under 3 or a diabetic child. But then he proceeded to tell me that if her temp sparked way up then best thing to do would to take her to the ER, since Patients First doesn't specialize in pediatrics. So I took the Dr's advice and we stayed home and maintained our round the clock temperature checks and timed dosage of medicine and more chicken noodle soup for lunch. That seemed to do the trick so far. At this point I do believe it is the Flu. Sometimes Dr. Mom knows best!

{Sunday} was almost like Saturday but fever seemed to be down a bit, it seemed to stay between 99.2 – 100.1 most all day. She did have a little bit more energy when the Motrin was kicked in . She played video games and was able to eat a little bit more than just soup. But at night fall here comes the fever!

{Monday} she had a low grade fever when she woke up so it was no school again. She didn’t sleep very well Sunday night she slept in until almost 10:30 a.m. which was what she needed rest, rest, rest! I Called and talked to the nurse at her Dr.’s office she said the waiting room was filled with sick kids and that as long as she didn’t have a very high temp and was staying hydrated, that the best thing to do may be to wait it out and that it could take up to 5-7 days to completely go away. Madison seemed to have a little bit more energy on Monday but still complained of a headache off and on throughout the day. Fever kicked back in at night and seemed to start coughing. This is where we added the cough medicine. (but unfortunately it didn’t seem to help much)

{Tuesday} since she had fever last night I had to keep her home again from school “24 hour rule” Tuesday was about the same as Monday, but this time she didn’t run a fever during the day at all, but now it was the complaint of a sore throat and the coughing was getting worse. She couldn’t even speak a sentence without going into a coughing spell. This was also the first day that she didn’t have much of an appetite all day long, but I kept pushing fluids so she never got dehydrated. Just as the evening was approaching here comes the fever, but it was only low grade not like the nights before.

{Wednesday} she woke up feeling better, NO fever, but still had not been 24 hours since her last fever so she had to stay home again. I was a worried about her cough and wanted to make sure it wasn’t bronchitis setting in where she would need an antibiotic to fight an infection instead it being all viral up until now. I called first thing to get a Dr.’s appt. we were able to make a 2:30 appt. She remained to stay Fever FREE all day and has her appetite back well she does now after she ate all of her McDonalds happy meal! Checked again right before bedtime and still NO fever…YEAH!

I am happy to report that her Dr. said she is on the downside of influenza and has NO infection, lungs sound good and no sound of wheezing. He prescribed some really good cough medicine with codeine and Guaffasin to help with the congestion. I have given her two doses once at 4:30 and again before bedtime that helped her sleep with NO cough all night long :)

{Thursday…today} NO fever when she woke up so made the “mommy call” again to go ahead and send her to school. But she had to follow these rules: