This has been a challenging few days…

Daphne has been a very sick little girl. 

She developed a wet cough out of nowhere on Saturday afternoon which, while unlike her, wasn’t in itself a huge deal.

Then by Saturday evening, a fever had begun to creep up.

And by Sunday morning, she was hot to the touch and our failmometer was vacillating between 99.2 and 101.5.

Regardless, that meant “fever,” and so we propped Daph up with some pillows and a blanket, gave her Little Baby Bum on the iPad, and tried to keep her stationary, insomuch as such a thing can be accomplished with a 3 1/2-year-old.

Unfortunately, her fever got worse as the day progressed and the failmometer read 102.1 on the high end of the samples (seriously, I hate that thing) by Sunday evening. 

So on Monday morning we cancelled swim class, called her school, and settled in for another day of rest here at home.

But, despite being completely soaked in sweat after two naps, her fever never broke.

Grandma picked up some toddler ‘tussin from the local CVS and we gave her a shot of it just before bedtime on Monday night. (Fun aside: this would be just after she threw up all of her rice and chicken nuggets while we were still sitting at the dinner table.)

And man, that stuff knocked her out like I’d spiked her Martinelli’s with Vicodin. 

She crashed out at 8pm and didn’t even move until 7am the following morning.

“Awesome…” I thought as I awoke on Tuesday. “That had to have knocked out whatever that bug was. We’ll have a chill day at home again and she’ll be ready for school tomorrow“

I stomped triumphantly upstairs to congratulate her on a great sleep and talk about what a fun day of videos we had ahead of us. But when I opened the door I found her sitting up in bed, flushed, and still burning hot to the touch. 

The Failmometer beeped back 99.5 and 101.9, unhelpfully.

Okay. This one is officially beyond dad’s over-the-counter skill to heal… We’re going to need a cleric doctor.

So I called the local clinic and, after some preparatory discussion about how Daphne would be unable to describe her symptoms, they found an opening for her at 11:30.

Now, getting Daph to cooperate with a doctor’s poking and prodding when she feels great is an Olympic sport. When she’s already sick, it’s a wrenching, muscling, screaming battle of wills and endurance, and one that’s entirely unpleasant for everyone involved.

Suffice to say, we did get her checked out.

And suffice to say, as you might’ve guessed by the title, Daphne does indeed have strep throat.

So today began the first of 10 days of amoxicillin shots, administered via one of those weird oral syringe thingies.

And I’d love to say the stuff was a fast-acting miracle drug like they described…but that would be a total lie.

No, now she has the exact same fever, but has added a gurgling cough to it. (One with a tendency to spackle throat yuck on everything within a 10′ cone area of effect.) Couple these with a mucus spigot where her adorable little nose used to be, and you can probably guess how entertaining our homelife has become.

This, of course, leaves out the bit about strep throat being ridiculously contagious. And Daph has, on more than one occasion, coughed directly up my nose.

At this point I have zero hope of escaping the streppy fate that’s ahead of me.

Anyway, Jen has taken the day off today to help take care of Daphne while I finish up the writing that I have due at the end of the week.

Oh, I haven’t mentioned that have I?

Yeah, I’ve been hired to do some creative writing for an role-playing game. It’s not a huge deal, as I’m just one of several writers working on it. And it certainly isn’t going to pay the mortgage…
But, full disclosure, this is one of those things that I’ve dreamt of doing ever since I was a kid, and I’ve been given a chance earned my shot right now.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it if/when it’s published. (Pending, of course, my stuff ends up being good enough to make the cut.)

I can’t say a whole lot more about it right now, NDAs being what they are, but I am a little excited. And, whatever happens, it’s been fun to work on.

Okay, I’ve got to run. I need to take some more vitamins…

j.s.