Nathan was sick last week with what we think was hand, foot and mouth disease. When I say ‘sick’, he had the illness but it didn’t slow him down much. It is the second time he has had this illness, though they both presented quite differently. This time he had a fever for 24 hours and then had a rash all over his body though it seemed worst on his knees, lower legs, feet, hands and wrists. He had some blisters, many being on his face. The virus that causes the illness is very infectious, so as Nathan was getting better I was just waiting for Toby to come down with it.

I fully expected Toby to catch it, so was very surprised as the days rolled on that Toby seemed fine. Then, on Saturday, I noticed that he felt quite hot. When we got home in the afternoon we checked his temperature and it was close to 39 degrees. Here we go, I thought, expecteding see the rash appearing very soon. Sunday there was no rash, and Toby was still hot. While he was a bit clingy, he didn’t seem too bothered by his elevated temperature until Sunday night when he started to get cranky. I decided to give him his first ever dose of Panadol at 6 pm, and by 9 pm he was really unsettled, wouldn’t sleep, was very hot, shaking and practically panting.

Why do kids always get sick at night, and on weekends? Andrew and I were a bit worried by the shaking, not knowing that it is common with high fevers. I rang Health Direct Australia to see what their advice would be, and it was that we should take Toby to hospital because of his rapid breathing.

So off to hospital we went. Andrew insisted on coming, so that meant we dragged Nathan out of bed and drove to the Children’s hospital, about a 15 minute drive away. We arrived around 10 pm, and were told that it would probably be a long wait. Toby’s temperature was measured at nearly 41 degrees.

I didn’t keep track of the times after that. Toby was given some panadol at one stage because he was a bit upset. We waited for quite a while, and when we were finally seen by a doctor who couldn’t find anything wrong with Toby besides the fever, which had reduced to 38 degrees. He decided that, although Toby isn’t a really small baby, it was still worthwhile looking further to see what was causing the fever. That means that they wanted to take some blood and urine fir testing. Urine…..that was the easy bit as far as I was concerned, having been pottying Toby since birth. Blood, well I didn’t like the idea of that.

I took Toby’s nappy off and was dismayed to find it wet, which means he’d done a wee recently. I cued him to wee and got nothing, so figured we’d get the wee later. A nurse came in and started syringing warm water onto Toby’s genitals.  Apparently the theory was that babies often wee in the bath, so she was trying to simulate those conditions.  She wasn’t successful, and we finally told her that we didn’t think he was ready for a wee yet.  Then I had to take Toby into another room where the doctor tried to insert a cannula into the back of Toby’s hand.  He looked at both hands closely, chose one and then poked around with the needle while Toby screamed and screamed and the nurse with the specimen container stood at the ready to catch any wee.  The doctor finally got so;me blood out of the needle, but could not insert the cannula, so syringed the blood out of the end of the needle, squeezed Toby’s had and syringed again….repeat until he had enough blood.  I just wanted to grab Toby off the bed and take him home, it was so awful listening to him scream.

Back in the room with Andrew and Nathan, I fed Toby and he fell asleep.  I felt relieved, mostly because I knew that we’d get that wee sample when he woke up.  The doctor came by to ask if we were successful yet, and I said we would be when he woke up.  Sure enough, about half an hour later he woke, I made the cue noise that we use and caught a wee.  I guess that 99.99% of parents don’t have a clue about their baby’s weeing patterns and so they need to try some innovative methods of collecting a sample, but we know how to get a sample if we need one and the antics of the nurse still make me laugh when I think about her.

Suffice to say that nothing was wrong with the blood or urine samples, and both were sent off for culturing which would take about 48 hours to get a result.  The doctor came to see us and said that they’d prefer to keep Toby overnight for observation, but since we lived so close to the hospital they were ok with it if we wanted to go home.  Sounded good to me!!  We took that option, received a heap of advice from the doctor as well as some paperwork/information on fevers, and the phone number to get the microbiological results in a couple of days.  I had a sneak peak at the report that the doctor typed up for the GP (I was recommended to take Toby to a GP the next day) which had a spot for diagnosis, and what do you think it said there……FEVER!  I just had to laugh.  We got home at nearly 3:30 am.

I don’t enjoy being in hospitals, but they are  necessary at times.  I’m glad I know about fever induced shaking now, so it won’t worry me so much if it ever happens again to either of the kids in the future.  Both times we’ve been to the Children’s hospital (the first ime when Nathan had croup), we’ve met with helpful and supportive people.