I am terribly sorry about the lack of activity a past several day. It has been a very long week, consisting of 3 doctor visits, high fevers, and very little sleep. Everything started on Monday. My daughter had an appointment for her 4 year wellness check and shots. We had a bit of a runaround leading up to the appointment because our health insurance decided to drop our pediatrician from their coverage. We didn’t know until we were already at the office & was told that the cost for the appointment was going to be over $600 out of pocket. After spending days trying to get a new appointment & doctor, I was able to get her in at the Baylor Health Center in town. I wasn’t overly thrilled about taking her there due to issues my husband has had there in the past, but I figured that I could at least get her shots out of the way and then decided later if I wanted to keep taking her there.
I took her up early Monday morning. Her check-up went well and she didn’t even cry while getter her shots. The doctor prescribed her some nasal spray for her sinuses and gave us a refill on the steroid cream I use when she gets insect bites and stuff. So, we go about out day. Everything was okay until evening when she stated running a slight fever. This is the norm when she gets her shots, so I gave her some Motrin and figured that she’d be better by the end of the following day.
By the end of the following day, she had been running a fever off and on, but it was being managed by the Motrin. By Wednesday evening, she was and not eating much & listless. Her fever was over 101 when spiking and the Motrin was no longer keeping it down. I started giving her Tylenol as well, but it didn’t help much. I called the doctor first thing Thursday and explained to them what was going on & what I was giving her. They connected me with the nurse who refused to see her since her fever hadn’t reached 102 & that no one ‘ever’ has a reaction to the shots…which isn’t true since I couldn’t take the pertussis (high fever, rash & swelling). She even had the nerve to tell me that I needed to treat the fever with medication & that I “couldn’t just leave it untreated”.
My patience & temper flew out the window at that. I said, “I have been since Monday night when the fever first started! Why do you think I called?” I don’t know what’s worse, that she honestly thought I was that stupid, or that they automatically tell people that since there are people that stupid. She told me that if my daughter wasn’t any better by morning to call back. The fever persisted throughout the day, and the meds were getting less and less effective. She lay on the couch all day and couldn’t eat more than a few bites of food. I kept her hydrated and made sure she drank pedialyte. By Friday morning, the fever finally hit the 102 mark & I was able to get her an appointment.
We had to wait around in the exam room for a while. My daughter ended up climbing up on my lap and dozed off. When the doctor came in, I had to explain what had been going on. She checked her out & looked in her mouth. The doctor then declared that my daughter’s tonsils were infected since they were very red, and prescribed some amoxicillin. Note that she (the doctor) didn’t do any type of swab test to see what exactly was wrong. I picked up the medicine later that day and started her on it at bedtime. By morning, the fever was gone and she perked up just a little. She still wasn’t eating like she should, but she was eating a bit more. I figured that within a few days she would be back to normal, and I was able to get at least a little sleep that night since I didn’t need to get up every hour or so to check her temperature.
Sunday started out good: still no fever and she was running around a little. At around noon, I was working on the computer and she was playing on the floor in the office with me. She wanted to go sit in the rocking chair in her room with me, so we went in. While we were sitting there, I noticed that her face was a little red. I had her stand by her lamp and took a look at her. She had started breaking out in a rash. It was on her belly, back and face. I called my mom to come over and help me get her to the emergency clinic since I figured that she was having a reaction to the amoxicillin.
We got her up there and a doctor saw her. After explaining what was going on & examining her, the doctor said that that rash could be from either the meds or strep throat. She was leaning more toward strep since if it was the meds she would have been itching, swelling & running a super high fever as well. I’ve never heard of anyone getting a rash with strep. I looked it up when I got home and found that you can, plus most of her symptoms matched having strep…except that her throat didn’t hurt. The doctor did a strep test, & it came back negative but she said that was probably because she already had antibiotics in her system. She couldn’t understand why the other doctor didn’t do any tests, and said that most of this could have been avoided if they had. She prescribed another antibiotic and some pills to help her stomach, & said to give her some Benadryl for a few days to help with the rash.
Today (Monday), she was a lot more active. She ate all of her breakfast, ate some snacks & ate most of her dinner. The rash isn’t as noticeable now and I hope that it will be gone in another day or so. Hopefully, so will be the end of the medical issues for a long while. I have decided that I’m not taking her back to the Baylor Medical Center, so I’ll have to start looking around for a new doctor for her. Aside form that, I am looking forward to getting back on track this week and getting some much needed sleep.
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