Munchkins

My poor little M was sick all weekend. He woke up Saturday with a temperature of about 102. I gave him some Tylenol and it dropped briefly. By about 2:30 or so Saturday afternoon, it was back up and wouldn't go down this time. By 10:00 Saturday night, he woke up with a temp of 104.1 and his nose bleeding. I was pretty nervous by this time. J hardly ever gets sick and has NEVER had a fever that high.


I called the Vanderbilt Nurse's Hot Line and spoke with one nurse who asked if I had any Motrin. I told her I had just bought some and she figured out his dose from his age and weight and told me to give him 1 1/2 teaspoons. So I did..... As I was washing out the dropper, I was reading the back of the Motrin box and it said to give him 1.875 ml and that 5 ml were in a teaspoon. I was thinking OH MY GOSH - I have totally over-medicated him. Needless to say, I called the nurses' line back and spoke with another nurse. She said that that was the correct dosage and asked if I gave him children's Motrin. I told her, "no", that I had given him infants Motrin. She said, in that case, yes, I gave him way too much.


I started to panic a little at that point. It didn't help any that T was holding M on the couch and kindof giving me the evil-eye. I told him that I had just done what the nurse had told me. I have never bought him childrens cold medicine for fever's so it never occured to me that the dosage was not for infants.


Anyway, the nurse three-way called the poison control and they said that he should be fine. I guess Motrin is a lot more forgiving if you give them too much. They said if I had done that with Tylenol, I would have had to take him to the ER. He slept really well that night and didn't have any fever Sunday morning but by mid-morning it was back. Poor little guy, he wasn't hardly eating at all and running a fever too....


By Monday morning, he was still running a fever and they (the Vanderbilt nurses) said that if his fever wasn't gone by Monday to take him to the doctors. So I did. He has a virus that the Dr. said would just have to work out of his system.


By Monday afternoon, his fever was down and has been down since. Thank God!!! He took care of my little M!! - and kept me from freaking out!!