Thursday, December 24, 2009

Have a Merry Poxy Christmas

As I posted about earlier, in Christmas at the Zoo or Santa, Part 1, Parker got 5 immunizations on December 11th. At the time, the nurse told me all the possible side effects of all of these shots. I listened like a good mother, took the 15 million papers they give you and went home. Parker seemed to be doing well.

The night before we left for Alicia's parents' was terrible. Parker didn't sleep and she woke up kind of snotty. We thought that perhaps her ear infections had returned (as they so often do.) We weren't sure because it wasn't too bad, but we weren't about to leave town for 6 days with a sick baby. So, we took her in. Yeah. She was fine, no ear infections, but still acting fairly cranky.

She did alright Friday, but then Saturday when she woke up from her nap, she was just REALLY cuddly and cranky. We knew she didn't feel well. When we gave her her bath Saturday night we noticed little red dots all over her belly.

Flashback: The nurse said something about one in a bazillion (or roughly something like that) getting a mild case of chicken pox from the vaccination. We weren't quite sold on chicken pox, thought maybe she was just getting a rash from the measles vaccine, but it wasn't super rashy - more spread out and kinda zitty looking. (Gross analogy, sorry!)

Sunday morning, she was totally glazed over and out of it. I thought her spots looked a little better. Sunday night, for the first time in her life, Parker had a fever. It was 100.4, which I know is not too bad, but I had to freak out a little because 1) her body temp is normally pretty low, like 96 or 97 and 2) she had never run a fever before (at least that I could catch!) I tried to keep telling myself that the nurse said she could run up to 102 and we shouldn't worry as long as we could bring it down with Tylenol.

She did okay though, basically slept well. Monday, a case of the uber crankies, spots worse - spreading and redder. Tuesday, spots about the same, still really cranky and cuddly. Yesterday, she seemed a bit better and I'm hopeful that when she gets up this morning, she will be even better still. The good news is that she slept really well last night than she has in the past week (I think being back in her bed certainly helped.)

I think the worst of it is over and I'm sure that it was just a very mild case, but I'm also sure that my kid is amazing because we were dragging her all over the midwest during all of this and people who don't spend a lot of time around her didn't even know anything was wrong because she was less cranky than some of the healthy kids! *

*Disclaimer - We are not horrible parents! We didn't know what was wrong with her until we were in the middle of our travel plans. Additionally, the dr said that we didn't need to worry about her getting anyone else sick unless she was around someone with a weakened immune system, which she wasn't! :)

So, here's hoping for improved health today so that we can have an "Un-poxy" Christmas tomorrow!

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