Christmas Weekend

While it was good to see family and friends this weekend, Christmas itself for this family was not all that great. We were with the Rausches in Big Stone City from the 23rd until noon on the 25th. We did the usual Christmas things, which were good — but Ian was sick and miserable all through it. It started on Christmas Eve, late afternoon. The family had already left to prepare for Christmas Mass (they are highly involved in the music and are often lectors at church). Ian had been fitfully napping all afternoon and Miles mentioned that he felt really hot. So we took his temperature: 101.5. Bummer. We called the on-call nurse for our clinic and after a series of questions, she determined that the temperature wasn’t high enough to be a serious infection and wasn’t low enough to chock up to teething. She thought it was a GI viral thing going around (especially since I remembered he had thrown up at daycare when I picked him up on the 23rd.) She suggested doing nothing (except light clothing) but to give him tylenol or ibuprofen if it got to 102, if he seemed in pain or if he needed a little help to sleep. I was OK with this, because when I was packing, I decided Tylenol wasn’t necessary. So we didn’t have any with us.

In church, he was sleepy and lethargic and squirmed his way into an uncomfortable (for me) position and fell asleep. It was like holding a casserole dish straight out of the oven in my arms. So warm. After church we spent dinner and the evening at grandma Harriet’s. He was generally in OK spirits until a few minutes before we left. Bed time, for sure. We took his temperature at the house and it was 202.3. Since he met two of the three conditions the nurse gave, we brainstormed who might have infant medicine in town. (Big Stone is a small town and nothing would be open that late, especially on Christmas Eve or Day.) After Paula ran to a relative’s, we gave him some ibuprofen and sleep that night was OK. However, his fever would reduce for an hour or two and then spike back up past 102 by the time we could give him more medicine. We got back to Sioux Falls near 3 on Christmas Day and made our way to the Miles family gathering. We had noticed some goopy eyes throughout the day, but often times when he gets a cold, he gets a virus in his eyes which produces some matter in his eyes. I didn’t think too much of it, because of that. After about an hour at the gathering, we decided to call the on-call nurse again. She couldn’t recommend anything without an accurate temperature reading. After a series of finicky thermometers and a poopy diaper, we got his temperature taken and it was 104.5! Woah.

Only one acute care clinic was open in town on Christmas Day and it closed in a little over an hour. It was in the exact opposite corner of the city. Skipping the lobster and steak Christmas dinner, (poor Miles missed it 2 years in a row) we made it there with no problem — traffic was slim and it doesn’t take long to get around Sioux Falls anyway. After an hour wait, he was diagnosed with pink eye in both eyes and a double ear infection. There was only one pharmacy open on Christmas Day and there’s over an hour wait. Things that evening went pretty fine after that.

After a few horrific evenings of what seemed to be a baby in lots of pain, Ian is doing much better. He’s still got a week of antibiotics left, but he should be OK. We never caught the pink eye — amazing since when we first noticed the goop, we didn’t do a great job of washing our hands after wiping it away. Eek.

Some steak and lobster were dropped off at the house the next day, so we didn’t miss out this year, after all!

Below are some photos from the weekend. See more here.

Ummm, Miles much?

Christmas morning

Christmas morning

Clinic on Christmas

Reading

Crocheted Penguin, green

Learning Farm