Phoebe's Fever of 104.5

Phoebe woke up Saturday morning when her daddy got up. They came in the front and Phoebe came to sit on my lap. She drank some milk and she felt like she was burning up. We took her temperature and it was about 103. We gave her Motrin to try and bring it down. She puked up her milk a few minutes later. We checked her temp again and it was 104.5! I called her doctor to see if we should take her to the ER. The nurse was very friendly and patient with me. She said not to worry, the Motrin probably upset her stomach which made her vomit the milk. (good idea Mom, geesh!) She said always use Tylenol if available, since it's easier on the stomach. (sorry Phoe, we had no idea!) She said the doctor doesn't even request that we call him until the fever is at least 105. I'm sorry, I grew up thinking you had to throw 'em in a tub of ice at 104! So I called down, a little. She also said to wait an hour and a half after giving her the meds before taking the temperature again. Well... what if the temperature is rising (as it was)? I couldn't just not take her temp for that long, maybe if it was a low grade fever, but it was 104! Plus, look at this thing. we couldn't bare to see her like this, we needed our baby girl to feel better.

The nurse also said that the fever is a way the body fights off the infection, so the doctor actually recommends not treating the fever. The medicine to bring the fever down is just a comfort thing. It's not going to help make her better, it'll just make the fever come down so she'll feel better. But he recommends just letting it run its course and fight off the infection. So we refrained from giving her anymore medicine. Her fever did eventually come down and she was back to normal, acting like nothing was wrong. It was really crazy to see her jumping around a few hours later. She was fine almost all day and then boom! Fever shot up to 104 again. We went through the up and downs all weekend (at least she felt fine in between and wasn't miserable 24/7), and since it was up and down on Sunday, I'd have to keep her home Monday. Same thing on Monday... and Tuesday. I was in touch with the dr's office the whole time. Finally they said to bring her in. So I did on Tuesday evening and they didn't give her meds or anything, they just checked her nose for the flu, it came back negative... and they said just let it finish running its course. Well it finally finished its course and things were back to normal Wednesday! (those few days felt like eternity!) We're just thankful that all turned out okay and we did learn a few things during all of this :)