Last night, I was led to bed by my awakened (nearly!) 3 year old who was begging for more cuddles in the 'big' bed. Cuddling close to one another, I realized with a bit of surprise that he was feverish. Now, having been a mother for the whole course of his life, I will say that this particular fever bout was one of the mildest sorts...but it still made me think how much I've grown into my role of a stand-back parent. The sort that lets nature occur as it will with only the slightest nudges when appropriate or desired. Meaning that when a fever comes knocking, I just wait and watch and push the liquids.
Fevers are one of those things that we grow up to think are awful, horrible, scary signs of illness that should be smothered down to 'acceptable' ranges of human body temperature with all sorts of immune suppressing medications. Or, at least, that's how I was generally raised. My mother would get all sorts of anxious whenever one of us would show signs of a fever, and, rightly so, we always felt AWFUL whenever one of us was suffering with one, so it made sense that somehow this thing....this FEVER was dangerous and should be cause for alarm.
Of course, now that I've come to know what I know, and think what I think, I realize that fevers are GOOD. The body is fighting off infection...the body is waging war against some foreign invader that it perceives as a threat and the battle is so intense that it's creating excess body heat. (or, something like that) This is GOOD because it means that the body's defenses are reacting appropriately...that the body has taken charge of the situation, and given the extra rest and fluids to keep away dehydration will more often than not come out the victor. It's what our immune system is supposed to do and, believe it or not, it's very successful. After all, we've survived millenia as a species.
As a mother, my role is to watch. To be aware of a fever when it presents and then to wait and watch. I try to keep us home, and entertain the boy with games and diversions that are easy on the body and involve lots of extra cuddles. I keep his water cup constantly re-filled and urge him to drink more, and do little else to signify that anything at all is 'wrong' with him. Occasionally, his appetite is also gone and then I cook up a bit of homemade bone broth and brown rice, or we make slushy smoothies out of fresh fruit for an extra vitamin C boost. But, nothing excessive. Nothing to let him know that I think he's in 'danger' or that I'm any more 'aware' of him than when he's perfectly healthy and bounding around like a mad man.
Now, there have been some fevers in the past that were excessive. I can think of two that had me very concerned to the level that I was unable to sleep through the night. In one case, we ended up needing a antibiotic shot the next day after the illness itself presented with a very disgustingly bloody eye and a fever that had raged for far beyond my comfort level. Still, even in that case, I'm thankful we waited as long as we did and treated it as normal for as long as we could because we were lucky enough that the illness (a version of conjunctivitis) was easily identifiable to the doctor and not yet life threatening, something we were praised for by the doctor.
The second case of fever died off on its own but I did intervene with one dosage of children's Tylenol after the poor boy became flushed all over his body and the fever had raged at an 'uncomfortable' feel to me for much longer than I could relax through. Or, and this is important to mention, more than the boy himself seemed comfortable with. After the one dosage, the fever continued for another day or two, but at a less concerning level and we were able to wait it out.
When I realized that we were in our latest run in with 'fever', I was pleased to see how little concern it arose in me. How confident I was in the boy's ability to fight off whatever it was without my intervening. It's something worth writing about ;-)
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