As you know we found out on Thursday afternoon that Maile had the chicken pox. She woke up on Friday with a few more spots, but for the most part was still her normal self and didn’t seem too bothered by everything.
Things changed dramatically on Saturday.
The chicken pox take over (with calomine lotion)
This is NOT comfortable.
For the most part on Saturday day, Maile was pretty good. The chicken pox started appearing all over her body, but she still was playful. She had a lot of trouble napping and her appetite went way down. She wanted to nurse way more than normal. She also was running a temperature of 102 to 103 throughout the day. (Side note: I can’t tell you how many times we’ve taken Maile’s temperature over the past 10 months thinking she might have a fever and have it come back normal. Now that she really does have a fever, I can say that you know a fever when you feel it – she is really hot to the touch, like hot pavement in the sun.)
Saturday night things got much worse. We just couldn’t get her down in her crib by herself. Christine ended up going to sleep with her at 8 PM and she basically would sleep for 15-20 minutes and then wake up from the itching or some other discomfort. This continued until about midnight. Then I went to bed with them and she tossed and turned between us all night long. She finally started sleeping longer spurts around 2:30 AM and I think we all got a good solid few hours in the early morning.
Unfortunately, she work up with the highest temperature yet – 104.7(!) We called the nurse hotline and were able to get the temperature under control with some Tylenol and a lukewarm bath. For all of Sunday morning she was really lethargic and definitely not her normal self. She basically slept on either Christine or I all morning long and when she wasn’t sleeping she was nursing or crying.
Mommy taking good care of her girl - this is how Maile spent most of her Sunday morning (when she wasn't doing the same on Daddy)...
This afternoon she started to perk up a bit and we were able to get her to play with her toys a bit – even crack a few smiles. We really hope last night and this morning was the worst of it, but we’ll see how tonight goes. Poor girl – she looks so uncomfortable.
(Side note: I was curious how many kids still have to suffer through the chicken pox now that there is a vaccine. I didn’t spend a ton of time on it, but this site from the CDC seems to indicate a decline of 85% in test areas (where they checked before and after the introduction of the vaccine). Pretty sure if Maile could talk she wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, so hopefully she’s the last of her friends to suffer through the Pox. Perhaps this is the first “unique fact about me” she can use for an icebreaker one day!?)
(Click here for the video.)
