You give me FEVER!!

Simon has definitely been sick before, so fever is nothing new to our household. But Simon was recently sick for 7 days with a high fever. I am not a mom to worry too much about a sick kiddo, especially because we have enough docs in the fam to give us advice. After 2 days of fever, he slept for 17 hours!! I couldn't decide if that was a good thing because he was sleeping it off, or a bad sign because he was so out of it...

Fevered Simon cuddling with Bear and Lala (Elmo) somewhere around hour 15.

Needless to say the fever stayed so we ended up at the doc's office twice this week. Which, while going to the doctor is never terribly convenient, turned out to be even more inconvenient than usual.

Our doctor was out of town, as I gathered from the voice message when I called her office Monday morning. The announcement that the office was closed was followed by information on a few other doctors to call in case you needed to be soon. (She is the only doctor in her practice and was gone out for 2 weeks). But I ignored that info, deciding instead that I would call a Kinderarzt (pediatrician) that a few friends had recommended that is just around the corner from our flat. (As opposed to the one we go to that  is across the river in Oberkassel - not in our neighborhood at all.)

So I called the doctor in our neighborhood, but when I told them that my doctor was out of town, they said that I had to see one of the doctors that she recommended. I guess there's some kind of agreement. So I listened to the message about 100 times before I could understand the phone number, and I made an appointment. I also could not understand the name of the street at all, even after she spelled it for me. Thank you googlemaps for being so smart! Even with my ridiculous spelling it knew just what I was talking about.

Anywho, went to the doctor, they said it was a virus, come back in 2 days if he still has a high fever. Two days later, still has a high fever but I did not want to go back to this doctor again (too far) and so I called the office close to me again and this time they let me in. I think that eventually they realize I don't understand everything that they're saying, so they just give in and give me want I want. Yeah!

This time they did a strep test, which came back negative. Then a blood test to see if it was a bacterial infection, in which case Simon would start on antibiotics. Also negative, so we were sent home to wait it out.

My sister is a pediatrician, so I asked her about all this hopping around to different docs. Then I realized that it wouldn't happen in most practices in the US because there is more than one physician. Brilliant!

And, as so often happens, when I think about it (or just read what I've written), it's just not that big of a deal. But sometimes, when you're doing everything in a language that you only kind of understand, the little things just are a big deal.