A Battle Against the Virus

I’m not sure if I’m being superstitious. I’ve been commenting on how big Sze Yi looked compared to the rest of the kids her age. Actually I was rather worried if she would be a very big size girl next time. And not long after that, she started to fall sick. There’s a chinese myth that forbid us to say things like that in front of the child, but I don’t really believe this.

However, last Sunday, I noticed that Szeyi was suddenly quite attached to me again, without any apparent reason. She wanted me to carry her and go for a walk, so that she could sleep on my shoulder while I carried her. She normally does this when she has difficulty in getting to sleep. I noticed that she was a little bit warmer than usual, but I didn’t suspect anything. However, after the walk, I felt that her temperature was not improving. I quickly measured her temperature, 36.8′C. Mine was 36.2′C. Still not considered as fever, but since it didn’t get better I decided to give her a dose of paracetamol.

Towards evening, her temperature stayed at around this level, but her body was very warm. We put a wet towel on her forehead, which she eventually pushed away. Hubby wanted to take her to our paedetrician, Dr. Lim but I asked him to wait, since she hadn’t reach 37′C. From our past experience, the paed won’t do anything if there’s no fever. Night came, and she went to sleep. We were monitoring her temperature closely. She didn’t show any sign of discomfort, like flu or cough, so it was beyond us why she could suddenly have fever. At around 2am, she woke up. Her whole body was hot. The thermometer showed 37.3′C. We fed her paracetamol (she was very good this time, didn’t really push it away but took it from the spoon directly since we told her she’s having fever). I continued to sponge her forehead until it went down to 36.8′C and then I went to sleep.

We took her to see Dr Lim the next morning. When Sze Yi saw Dr. Lim, she quickly insisted to be taken out from his clinic. She wouldn’t let him touch her and cried so pitifully. Poor girl, she asscociated him with jabs and pain, so everytime we took her to see him, she would grow very apprehensive. In between all her stuggles, Dr. Lim managed to check on her quickly, and confirmed my suspicions that Sze Yi was having a bad sore throat. However, he didn’t prescribe us any antibiotics since he prefered her to fight the virus on her own. According to him, it’s just another viral infection. So he prescribed us Ventolin expectorant (for her cough, since she coughed occasionally, although not serious), Polaramine Syrup (for her runny nose, also just a mild one) and Paracetamol for her fever (her temperature was 37.3′C when he measured her).    

It was not that hard to feed her the medicines, as she was very co-operative. But she hates the cough syrup (whitish in color) and it took hubby some persuasive power to convince her that it’s ok. Hubby would say “sweet sweet” and we gently coaxed her to take it. She was very good. It worked well with both the syringe and the spoon. However, she was very demanding especially when it comes to Barney. She would keep on insisting to watch Barney. We relented because she was sick. We also used that as a bribe for her to take her medicine (chuckled)! 

That night, after she slept (the 2nd night that she got fever), MIL went in to check on her. She noticed that her temperature suddenly shot up and so she sponged her body. However, Sze Yi was shivering. Hubby got really worried so we took her to the Hope Specialist in Tanjung Bungah because Pantai was already closed by then. If we went to Pantai, it would be considered as an emergency and they had to page for Dr. Lim.

When we reached Hope, we had a hard time trying to get Sze Yi’s weight. She wouldn’t want to stand on the weighing scale, so I have to weigh both of us, and then minus my own weight. Her weight was around 10.4kg. Later, when she saw all the toys and indoor playground there, she suddenly grew very active and started to play with the slides, the car, etc. We didn’t wait long before we were called in. The doctor in charge measured her temperature – it was 38.6′C! We all got a shock. So, he prescribed her antibiotics (Zithromax Susp), Actihist Co Syrup (for running nose/cough) and Paracetamol. He also asked the nurse to administer the suppository for her since she’s having such a high fever. We were given some to take back with us, in case her fever couldn’t subside. We were told that if she’s still having fever after 48 hours, we should bring her back to the clinic again.

We went home, but Sze Yi wouldn’t want to sleep. She wanted to see Barney instead. It was already 1am in the morning. So we had to accompany her. If we insisted of not letting her, the little monster would scream until the roof came down and still crying.  We have no choice.

All of us were really tired and drained out during this period. Despite her being sick and taking all the medicines, she still slept very late and demanded to watch Barney. So we took turn accompanying her, there’s once when I could only sleep after 4am. Later, MIL woke up to relieve me. Guess what time that little girl slept? 5am! That was a great record.

Well, it had not been easy feeding her medicine after that. She hated the antibiotics, and it took us lots of coaxing to get her to eat. We didn’t use force since the medicine would surely spilled instead of going into her mouth. So, we use Barney as the bribe. “If you take this medicine, Mommy will let you watch Barney”. It didn’t work all the time, so I’ll need Daddy’s creative idea. Sometimes I would accosicate the color of the medicine with strawberry, orange, etc… Or hubby would say “Szeyi, come mum mum…” since she loves food. It’s getting harder to get her to eat the medicine each day, but thank goodness she finally completed her antibiotics and so now I only gave her the cough/runny noise syrup once at night, since her cough was very rare and mild.

We also noticed that she’s much stronger this time. Hubby commented that she fought the battle well because she recovered very fast. She looks thinner now, because we didn’t feed her rice or porridge for fear of her getting a fever again. Her appetite went down, and only drank milk for the past one week. However, I noticed that she’s very active again by Wednesday, no more fever at all and I have never been so glad. Maybe I should refrain from commenting about her size again, since each child will grow according to her own pace and rhythm.  I think I’ve learnt my lesson