This Week: A Summary
This last week was supposed to be my first back at work, and it sort of was. I was thinking that it'd all go well. The Boy was regularly sleeping from about 10:00pm til about 6:00am. I thought I was the luckiest working mom in the world. On Saturday, he woke up with a stuffy nose. On Sunday, it was 102 degree fever and a trip to Children's Hospital.
I learned something, though. I knew that they freak out more about fevers in babies under 2 months old, and I knew it was something to do with the development of the immune system, but I didn't know much beyond that. It turns out that the blood-brain barrier (the thing that keeps your brain from getting infections) isn't really complete until 2 months, so any bacterial infection the baby picks up could turn (quickly) into meningitis. Whoa. And if there's bacteria and no meninnngitis, the other big possibility is early appendicitis. In any case, there was no bacteria, so they did a viral PCR test, and I got to tell the doctor about how Kary Mullis invented PCR (and won the Nobel prize) because he wanted to mass produce Elvis DNA for sale to tourists.
It turned out to be a "parainfluenza" virus, which is what they were hoping for. In those of us who ae over 2 months old, a parainfluenza virus would appear to result in a couple of days of a sore throat, during which time we try to sort out whether it's allergies or are we actually coming down with something. Then one joint goes seriously out of whack, for me it was my shoulder / neck, for HRH it was his knee. Then there's about 24 hours of every joint in your body hurting something fierce with a 99 degree fever. Then you're on the mend. For people under 2 months, it would seem to result in about 4 days of 102 degree fever. The Boy was not happy.
My day of every joint in my body hurting started Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, I was trying to describe the complete depth of my misery from the evening before. "Yesterday, I just felt...." I grappled for words.
"Grumpy," the iBoo muttered.
"That wasn't exactly what I was planning to say," I replied drily.
The iBoo gave me wide, innocent eyes. "I was just saying that to myself," she said.
"Yes, well you said it to yourself with your outside voice," HRH quipped.
"I can say it to myself inside my head," she replied, "like this. Watch me." She then proceeded to show me a facial exression that could only represent muttering "Grumpy" inside her head. I could see the thought bubble over her head, just as if someone had drawn a little balloon and written "GRUMPY" in it. I've been assured that this means that there's little doubt that she's my daughter. I don't think I ever did get to milk any sympathy out of my misery.
Sigh.
Grumpy.
So my first week back at work was really more of a half week. We'll see how next week turns out.
I learned something, though. I knew that they freak out more about fevers in babies under 2 months old, and I knew it was something to do with the development of the immune system, but I didn't know much beyond that. It turns out that the blood-brain barrier (the thing that keeps your brain from getting infections) isn't really complete until 2 months, so any bacterial infection the baby picks up could turn (quickly) into meningitis. Whoa. And if there's bacteria and no meninnngitis, the other big possibility is early appendicitis. In any case, there was no bacteria, so they did a viral PCR test, and I got to tell the doctor about how Kary Mullis invented PCR (and won the Nobel prize) because he wanted to mass produce Elvis DNA for sale to tourists.
It turned out to be a "parainfluenza" virus, which is what they were hoping for. In those of us who ae over 2 months old, a parainfluenza virus would appear to result in a couple of days of a sore throat, during which time we try to sort out whether it's allergies or are we actually coming down with something. Then one joint goes seriously out of whack, for me it was my shoulder / neck, for HRH it was his knee. Then there's about 24 hours of every joint in your body hurting something fierce with a 99 degree fever. Then you're on the mend. For people under 2 months, it would seem to result in about 4 days of 102 degree fever. The Boy was not happy.
My day of every joint in my body hurting started Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, I was trying to describe the complete depth of my misery from the evening before. "Yesterday, I just felt...." I grappled for words.
"Grumpy," the iBoo muttered.
"That wasn't exactly what I was planning to say," I replied drily.
The iBoo gave me wide, innocent eyes. "I was just saying that to myself," she said.
"Yes, well you said it to yourself with your outside voice," HRH quipped.
"I can say it to myself inside my head," she replied, "like this. Watch me." She then proceeded to show me a facial exression that could only represent muttering "Grumpy" inside her head. I could see the thought bubble over her head, just as if someone had drawn a little balloon and written "GRUMPY" in it. I've been assured that this means that there's little doubt that she's my daughter. I don't think I ever did get to milk any sympathy out of my misery.
Sigh.
Grumpy.
So my first week back at work was really more of a half week. We'll see how next week turns out.