Sunday, February 24, 2008

delirium

Thursday A.M. around 6:30, I heard S. thumping around. Turns out she was sick, poor kid, so there went her WAVA field trip to the bowling alley. D and I went instead, leaving A to take care of his daughter.

Along with the sickness came a tidy fever - 103.8 at its highest. This set off some alarming memories in my skull: 1) kidney infection when she was 3, or 2) Influenza, from 2 years ago when the entire household save myself was laid up in bed for a week (and longer in A's case). The influenza swab at the Dr's office came back negative, but she decided to treat S. as if it were, so we got a prescription of Tamiflu. Unfortunately, we discovered that the Tamiflu makes her sicker. After 3 doses, I gave up. I'd rather have her hydrated and able to keep SOMETHING down.

She slept all day Thursday and on into the night. At 3 am she was wide awake, so I put her (bad mommy, but she needed SOMETHING to do) on the couch in the living room to watch Ratatouille. We were awakened at 6 am on Friday morning with her loud, gutteral sobs emanating from the living room (i can't even find the vowels to reproduce the sound for you, so just imagine it as loud and primal). A and I stumble/run to the living room, to find her kneeling in front of the telly screen, where the DVD main menu for Ratatouille was running. "AUauuauahhhhhh! I CAN'T MAKE WEISS!" she sobbed. (Weiss? huh?) A. reassured her it was okay. She was still pretty upset that she and D were trying to wipe off the laundry and couldn't do it. Finally got her calmed down and back to sleep.


That's been the pattern around here since Thursday. Her temp has consistently been 102 or higher, and she hallucinates when she's sleeping. Her pupils are dilated, and she looks through you, rather than at you. So far she's been rather insistent that there's a robot in the house; that she can "go on top of her head"; something involving a "waterstump" - and other things that I haven't taken the time to write down to remember, but just as whacked out. Then 5 minutes later, she'll truly wake up and have no memory of what has just occurred.

Just now (Sunday night), she woke up crying from her sleep that her neck hurts and she needed help. I helped her sit up, rubbed her neck (she's been coughing a lot), and invited her to take sips of magic cordial (a citric acid based "lemonade" without salicylates that I make for them.) She then proceeded to tell me that her mommy makes magic cordial, and sometimes her daddy lets her dilute it with some sparkling water so it's like 7Up--and did I want some? The beaker was next to the microwave, and did I know where to find the cups in the cupboard? I thanked her for her help.

She's very entertaining when she's delirious.

Now I am watching D. with eagle eyes to see if his turn is next. And I am very thankful that both A and I got flu shots this year.

7 comments:

Tammy said...

Oh dear! Hoping S gets to feeling better very soon! (And no one else catches it!!!)

Zintradi said...

don't mean to be negatory, but Menegitits maybe?
I only say that because of the sore neck...
Unless of course, she's getting better, then it's probably not that.

Anonymous said...

Oh dear I hope she gets better soon, poor thing. My chatterbox is highly entertaining when she is hallucinating due to fever, she says the strangest things.

Brandy said...

I hope she feels better soon! Thank you so much for stopping by my page and praying for Erin! I recieved a comment about the little girl and the lady said that her parents were in her sisters sunday school class. She gave me a web site that you can go to and it updated every day. Erin does seem to be doing better, but she still has a long way to go, so we still need to keep her in our prayers! Here is the website and I will also post it on my blog! http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/erinpage .do Bless you!
Love,
Brandy

Anonymous said...

I hope she is better soon!

Anonymous said...

Poor thang! That is so YUK. I am a delirious sick-o too, I have the most vivid and horrible nightmares when I have a fever. And I ramble feisty nothings. I hope she recovers quickly and that you and A manage to avoid it!

Annecourager said...

Richard, actually at one point I was a little worried about menengitis, but she's coughing so much that it's muscle soreness.

It's Tuesday now.... Monday night/Tuesday morning at 1am we actually had to toss her into a cool bath because her temp had gotten up to 104.5! This, after having a morning temp of 97.9, and I was thinking she was finally out of the woods.

Thanks to you all for your prayers and well-wishes! She actually ate half a baked potato tonight, and was able to sit on the couch much of the day and interact with people around her. :)

Oh and Karen, my husband tells me all the things I ramble on about when I'm asleep... so he just says S. comes by it naturally, she's her mother's daughter. :) Let's hear it for us delirious people.