So this is how this works???

Noelle Dugan is the director of communications at Children's Medical Center. This is a follow-up to her first post about having to stay home with her sick child, a 5-year-old who has swine flu.

I had been hoping my update to the blog would have been something simple and very comforting to parents.

As of Tuesday evening, Sydney's temperature had finally returned to normal, so she went to bed without any fever reducer and woke up Wednesday morning at 98.6! What an awesome birthday gift as Wednesday was Sydney's big day! I started the 24 hour count down of fever free. She was feeling really good on Wednesday. We even had a little birthday celebration at home. The real bash was planned for Sunday.

But maybe we over did it or something because come bedtime, her fever was back up to 99.5. I found this really odd, but she was still feeling good. She went to bed asking if she could go to school on Thursday. I explained that she still had a fever and would have to wait another day.

Well, that night she coughed uncontrollably and on Thursday morning she was a mess. The coughing was worse; her left eye was weeping and her nose was running like a faucet. Her fever was back up to 101. I knew this wasn't a good sign. Part of the issue that we've seen with the flu is this secondary infection.

Of course I got online and everything says if a fever goes away and then comes back call your doctor. So I did.
They told us to come in immediately. The doctor checked her breathing and her oxygen level (the biggest concern is pneumonia). Thankfully, both were fine but something was causing the return of the fever. Our doctor ruled out ear and sinus infections, then looked in her mouth and there it was: big, red, swollen tonsils.

Sydney now has tonsilitis.

So now I'm a little concerned...again. I remember in some of the discussions at work (where I haven't been all week!) about this super infection they're seeing in some of the really sick kids. So I made another call to one of my friends at Children's. He advised me that they had been seeing increased infection in the lower respiratory tract, so we've started on the antibiotics.

Poor Syd's fever has been back up to 102 most of the day, so we're back on the fever reducer too. She is now really under the weather. Her throat is killing her. Have you ever tried to get a 5-year-old to drink hot tea? Didn't work out so well.

So it's 2 a.m. I've slept in a twin bed with my not-so-little 5-year-old (Sydney's in the 97th percentile for height) for the past two nights. If you call this sleeping. I'm praying for no fever in the morning, less drainage, and a better feeling Syd.

This has been a grueling week. All I can hope is that we are truly, finally on the mend. If there are a significant number of parents living what I'm living with all these kids with the flu, we probably need to be concerned about that too. Is there a description of exhaustion in our health library? Cause you can put my picture next to it!

So this is really it. Swine flu up close and personal. Stay tuned.

P.S. We've postponed Sydney's party. If all goes well the next couple days she should not be contagious, but the doctor said her immune system is too weak to risk the introduction of any infection to her. Talk about adding insult to injury. Now that I think about it, maybe she was actually spitting the hot tea at me.