Panic in the Morning

On Monday, Lea was in high spirits going to school. It was Racial Harmony Day and she was in her favourite Korean dress. Each student could wear a traditional costume to celebrate this occasion and she had loved this since I bought it for her more than a year ago.



When she came home, Lea wasn't feeling herself (see left pic). She came home with a temperature. It fell into the range of between 38-ish all the way to 39.4 deg. I gave her the paracetamol for kids, 125mg dosage. At 1pm, I dropped by the pharmacy for Neurofen and new bottle of Paracetamol suspension cos I wasn't sure if the old bottle will be as effective since it has been around for more than 4-5 months. I also got those cooling gel pads for the forehead and put them in the fridge.

At about 5pm, her temperature shot up to 39 deg and above. I gave her a sponge bath and it brought the temperature down to 38 deg. That was better. I stayed up the night to check on her and gave her medication twice at midnight and about 6.30 in the morning. She was fine and fever subsided in the night, actually.

Then the big panic came at about 10 plus in the morning. She commented she was feeling cold. That doesn't sound right cos usually she will not bother with chills and loves it as a matter of fact. I went over to check and saw that she was shivering and trembling. Her fever had gone up again. I checked and it went up from 38.4 to 38.9 in just minutes. Her fingers and toes were cold, and she looked like she wasn't really herself.

I MSNed my sis and asked if she knew how to administer Guasa Therapy (chinese traditional way of scraping the skin surface to release heat). I remembered my friend told me that it is an effective way for kids. Our mom used to do that for us when we were kids. Sis said she had not done it before and advised me to get to the doc as the best option.

Although I had given her Neurofen (high fever /painkiller) she didn't seem to look so good. I got so worried. I could see her lips started to turn blue. That was when I panicked. I then grabbed her, my car keys and drove straight to the clinic that i usually bring the kids to. I had my drawstrings pyjama pants on.. what the heck!

Along the way, I called up the clinic to get a queue number first. When I reached there in 10 minutes, the clinic was full of people.. sigh... and we had 10 patients before our turn to see the ever popular Dr Tan. Did you know how long the wait was? Almost two hours! It was about 12.15pm when it was our turn.

Dr Tan said since she didn't suffer from any flu or other symptoms, it could have been a viral infection that has been circulating this week. The weather had been very bad too. Well, at least that was a relief. And because I had bought my own medication he gave us an MC for Lea for her absence from school. Although he said it would clear in a few days, I better be keeping her at home and monitored for the next few days.

Guess I over react. But which mom will not react this way seeing kids turn blue in their lips, right?