The lowercase is still feverish. His temperature came down in the evening and was around 99 at bed. We gave him some motrin anyway since he'd been fluctuating all day and hoped to help keep it down by doing so.
It didn't work. At 3:15 I woke up and he was awake. I thought he had been pushing me and I was trying to get him to relax and go to sleep. And then I realized -- he was shivering. Hard. Mr. W jumped up and got the ear thermometer for a fast check -- it read 100 in one ear and 101 in the other. But he would. not. stop. shaking.
We rushed into his bedroom, put him on the changing table and used a digital thermometer to get an under-arm temperature (this was the preferred method when he was in the NICU since they did it every 3 hours around the clock). This gave us a reading between 101 and 102. But still he couldn't stop shivering. He was alert and talking to us, but his nail beds were bluish and he was just...shivering rather violently. I had called the doctor's office while we were temping, so as we waited for their return call, we decided to do a rectal temp (with a different digital thermometer -- if you ever visit us? Do NOT use the spongebob thermometer!) He was shivering and whimpering and after some time there was still no definitive beep telling us it was done, but it stayed at 99.5 so we gave up.
I called my mom and asked her if she thought I should just take him to the hospital and skip the nurse's call back. He was still shivering. Hard. And his temperature raised to 104 (ear).
The nurse told us that shivering is the body's way of raising the temperature and that while his temperature was high, it wasn't dangerous. She told us to wipe his head with cool cloths, give him fluids, dose him up with motrin again and wait an hour. If at that point it was still under 105 (even if it hadn't gone down) there wasn't a problem and we should continue at home. If it went above 105, she wanted a call back.
It's now been an hour since his medicine. He has drunk 2 sippy cups of cold water. He's periodically letting me wipe his forehead and neck with a cool cloth. He is no longer shivering. He's still alert -- as alert as can be expected at this ungodly hour. Essentially he's lounging quietly on the couch beside me and will answer questions if I ask them, continually shifts from leaning on the arm of the couch to leaning on me to laying down with either his feet or head in my lap. His temperature is hanging in right around 104 with the most recent reading being 103.3 so maybe it's going down?
Mr. W finally went back to bed after sitting up with us for an hour. I plan to stay up the rest of the night and will go to sleep when Mr. W gets up (I had only just fallen asleep at 1am!) and he'll take care of the lowercase who may or may not sleep. I really have no clue.
Tomorrow will be day 3 of the fever and that, to me, is reason enough to try to get in to the doctor for a Saturday visit. We'll be calling first thing in the morning...er...um...in a couple of hours when they start seeing appointments for the day.
