When you have a sick kid, if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that if mom feels something isn’t right… it’s not.

I called into the doctor again today, because it’s been six days since Monkey first developed her fever, and she keeps getting worse instead of better.  She woke up today and her eyes were still swollen, but in addition to the swelling, they were completely blood shot… as in no whites were visible.  I figured it was from the dehydration, but it scared the crap out of me nonetheless.

Upon calling I got the typical ‘well you can bring her in again if you want… but…’.  I lost it.  I started crying and asked for them to tell me what to do.

Yes, I’ve tried a popsicle.  Yes, I will let her drink juice if she wants it.  Yes, I tried ice cubes. DUH.  Let’s move on here people – it’s not my first day on the job and common sense would tell you that if someone is getting dehydrated, they need liquid.  My question is HOW.   How do you make a three year old swallow when her throat is so swollen and sore she won’t even swallow her drool, but rather wipes it with a tissue?

No, she’s not urinating more than once a day.  Yes, it is very dark in color.  No, she’s not eating either.  Yes, I’ve tried soup, jello, and fruit. No, her fever hasn’t gone away.

After a barrage of questioning, and tears, an appointment was made.  We hadn’t bathed, dressed, or brushed our teeth, but I made darn sure we made it to their office which is 45 minutes away in the hour time frame we had.

Again, our beloved doctor is out of town, so we had to see the on-call doctor.  When he walked in the room I was ready for a fight.  I was a little nervous because he is quite a bit older than the medical professionals we usually see, and I was a little worried that he wouldn’t even make it through our appointment, due to how frail he looked.  For half a second, I was more worried about his health than Monkeys.

He asked the same old questions, and looked in her ears, felt her tummy and listened to her chest and back.  Then, after several notes in the file, he looked at me and said:

My guess is she has mono.  She has all of the symptoms and the blood test will take about a week to come back, but I am confident treating her as such.  The fact that her fever has reduced since she was here last is concerning, because it indicates her body isn’t fighting the infection as it was.  Her loss in weight (2lbs in 2 days) indicates moderate dehydration and I can see a pretty bad infection in her throat.  Additionally, her lymph nodes are swollen and you had mentioned she had a rash about two weeks ago – therefore I am confident it’s what we are dealing with.

Finally, an answer.  Of course, you don’t want your child to have an illness, but somehow attaching a name, even the possibility of a name, made me feel better.  It made me feel like the fighting I did with the nurses, the comments that I was overreacting, and the repeated second guess of myself was worth it.  Even though there’s not much you can do for mono, having the comfort of knowing I AM doing everything I can – even if that means simply waiting and showing patience – was worth the fight.