Ear Infection

Yesterday afternoon when Kinley woke up from her nap, I thought she felt a little warm.  John did, too, so we took her temperature.  It was 101.5.  My instinct said it was more than just maybe getting another tooth.  She seemed to be a little clingy throughout the afternoon, and fell asleep in the late afternoon while I was holding her.  I was debating back and forth what I should do.  I didn't want to take off work if it wasn't necessary, but I knew my priority was whatever Kinley needed.  I was worried that I would take today off, and she might get worse and then I would need to take more days off.  We called our babysitter and relayed the situation to her.  Lately, she has been leaving the house with Kinley most days, to take care of her mom, and other things she needs to do.  John asked her if she could stay at the house with Kinley today, since we weren't sure what was wrong.  Unfortunately, she had some plans during the day, so we just decided I would stay home with Kinley.

We gave her ibuprofen before bed last night, and that seemed to keep her fever down.  I didn't give her any this morning, because I wanted to see what would happen with her temperature during the day.  She ran a low grade fever most of the morning.  I left a message with the nurse at our doctor's office, but it was taking a while to get a call back.  I called and left another message, and they called right back.  I felt like a nervous first-time mom, but I just felt that something wasn't right.  The nurse worked us in to the very last slot they had for the day, at 4:00.  We had to wait quite a while to be seen.  Of course when they took her back, she had no fever at all.  Dr. Flanagan was very kind and said a fever is usually the first sign of something being wrong, so we were right to be concerned.  He checked her ears first.  The right ear was clear, but the left ear had the very beginning of an infection.  I felt justified for all of my mommy worrying!  Everything else was fine, so he prescribed an antibiotic for her.  Kinley's first pink bubble gum medicine.  Luckily we caught it early enough that it never really seemed to bother her.  She was good as new in no time!  I hope these kinds of appointments will not be frequent.