Poor Baby

Yesterday, I chaperoned Emily's class field trip to the Victory Ship. (If you've never heard of it, it's an old WWII warship that is docked behind the Florida Aquarium.) My Aunt Kathie kept Katie for me while I was out with Emily for the day. When I returned to pick Katie up, my aunt informed me that Katie had hardly eaten anything all day. Not such a terrible thing - maybe she just hadn't been hungry.

After Sarah got home from school, I took the girls (including one of Sarah's friends) to the Olive Garden for dinner. Katie usually loves it there because she is crazy about their breadsticks. I figured that since she hadn't eaten much all day that she would be pretty hungry, too. I figured WRONG! Not only did Katie not want to eat - even her beloved breadsticks - but she was miserable and yelling the entire time we were there. All I could do was beg the older girls to please hurry and finish their food so we could get out of there.

Once we got home, I took Katie's temperature and it was 102.7. No wonder she hadn't been eating or acting right all day! She was sick, duh! So, I gave her some Tylenol and rushed her up to the After Hours Pediatrics office, because I was afraid to wait until this morning to see her regular pediatrician. THAT was a HUGE WASTE of TIME and MONEY!

The "doctor" there said that Katie looked just fine to her. She could see no signs of infection, so her fever must be being caused by a virus, and we should just keep treating her fever with Tylenol and Motrin and wait for her to get over it. Something about her diagnosis just didn't sit right with me, and when Katie was still running such a high fever this morning (up to 103 by then) I called her pediatrician and asked if I should go with what the other "doctor" had said or bring her in to be checked out. He said to bring her right in.

Since I had to get Sarah to a friend's house for a ride to volunteer with our church youth group at Metropolitan Ministries, and get Emily to her soccer game, too, I had Phil take Katie to the doctor. As it turns out, Katie is NOT infection-free as I was told last night. Her throat is bright red and her glands are swollen. Luckily, it's not Strep, but it was still pretty bad. Since we had already wasted $30 on the After Hours co-pay, Dr. Bob gave Phil some samples of the antibiotic so we wouldn't have to pay for them. Hopefully, she'll be feeling better very soon.