The "practice" of medicine....

So this weekend my son, jewel of my life, spiked a fever. When I say spiked I mean he went to bed fine on Friday no inclination that he wasn't feeling well and then BOOM he woke up on Saturday morning with a temp. Now, I'm told by the people who "practice" medicine that 99-104 isn't really anything to worry about. So, we went about our day after giving him Tylenol and waited to see what would happen. This boy almost never gets sick. He's the healthier of my two, so I was concerned with the fever but waited. By the evening his temp after three doses of Tylenol over the day was still 101.5. I called our "health professionals" and was told he needed to go to urgent care or the ER. So off to the ER we go as all the urgent cares around me closed at 4pm and it was now 6pm.

At the hospital things proceeded in a "practiced" fashion. My son's temperature was taken at triage and the first time she took it it registered 98.4 degrees. I had just taken his temp before we left the house and it was 101.5 there was NO way in 1/2 an hour it had gone down that much. So, the nurse took it again this time using an under the tongue thermometer and it registered at 102. Just slightly higher...right! Any way moving on...

We go to see a nurse to be triage yet again. I am told that the fever of 102 is really nothing to worry about and that we would still see the doctor, but there really wasn't anything wrong with him. 102 fever and NOTHING is wrong...I so don't think so, but again I am reminded to be calm and that a fever is a fever. It means the body is fighting something but its not that bad till 104.

We get in to the doctor. She decides to test for flu and strep and asks me if he's been given anything since we got there. Nope they didn't give him anything in the two hours we've been here. Huh, she says well let's take his temp and give him some Motrin. 103. So the fever is not going down. She wants to break the fever, do the tests and see where we're at. Temp in an hour 104. Temp in two hours 104.5. No flu, No strep, but there's a 10% error rate with the flu test and a 3-5% error with the strep. Lets check his white cells and see if we can find an infection. White cell test and Tylenol at three hours from the Motrin. An hour after that the fever goes down to 103. An hour after that we get down to 101.9. White Cells are fine, no infection. So, what does that mean? Could be a virus......but we can't test or do anything for that.

Yeah for the "practice" of medicine.

As a side note whatever it is or isn't I have, my dad has and my daughter now appears to have. We are all down for the count with fevers and other issues....but hey we'll "practice" at being sick so the professionals can "practice" at medicine.

Please excuse the harshness of this post but I am really sick with this nonexistent whatever.