I wrapped on the door but didn’t wait for my daughter’s response. I knew that as soon as I opened the door I’d find her dashing into her bed, catching her off guard. My specialty.
To my surprise Zoë was already in bed, turned on her left side in a fetal position clutching her giraffe stuffed animal to her small body.
“How’s my girl?” I asked, settling down into the chair next to her bed. Her back
was towards me so I reached out and touched her gently. Oddly enough her back was warmer than usual. “Zo?” I said softly, leaning over to see her eyes. She quickly rolled over on her side and faced me. I drew my hand back as she moved, taken back by her rapid motion. My smiled dropped when I saw her eyes. They were glossy and dull, her face pale. “Zoë, are you feeling OK?”
My daughter reluctantly shook her head. Her free arm wrapped around her
stomach.
“Does your tummy hurt?” I asked sympathetically. I cupped my hand around her cheek. She nodded and kept her eyes cast at the floor. I placed the back of my hand lightly on her forehead. She had a temperature.
“Daddy,” my daughter whined clutching her stomach tighter. “It hurts.”
“Aw baby!” I exclaimed taking her in my arms. I patted her back softly and let her cry on my shoulder. I stood up with her in my arms, letting her head rest on my chest. I felt the bottoms of her feet, she definitely had a fever, and worst than that, it was rising.
I walked Zoë out of her room and went to find my wife. Clare would suggest
calling the doctor at his office to find out what illness was going around and then ask if she could give the kid some Tylenol, then proceed to bring Zoë to the office tomorrow morning when she would usually be leaving for school. In the old days the two of us would have freaked out, bringing her to the doctor’s office as soon as possible, but now, four kids and a dog later we were calmer about illnesses. We just wanted to contain them before things got out of hand and a smaller person got infected.
Clare was in our bedroom, dressing for bed. As soon as she saw Zoë in my arms she dropped what she was doing and grabbed our daughter’s forehead. She titled Zoë’s head back and kissed her forehead gently. “I’ll get the thermometer,” she said. I nodded and sat down on our bed, holding Zoë in my lap. Clare returned in less than thirty seconds with the ear thermometer. I held Zoë firmly and let her mother do the dirty work. When she was done, she held the LCD screen in my view so I could see what it read.
103.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
She didn’t feel that hot to me. My daughter went back to leaning the left side of her head against my chest. Now her right thumb was in her mouth. I rocked her gently and spoke to Clare over her head. “Are you going to call the doctor?” I asked.
Clare thought for a second. “It’s after nine, the office is closed.”
“Oh great,” I said. “What are we going to do?” I looked back down at my
daughter. “What hurts honey?” I asked her.
“My tummy,” she replied groggily.
“Anything else?” I pushed. She nodded and pulled on her right earlobe, indicating that her right ear hurt. I sighed. Zoë had a lot of ear aches like I did when I was a kid. They were less frequent now, but the year before had been a killer. I could feel for her when she woke up crying some nights. All that we could do was give her a hotpad for her ear and take her for antibiotics the next morning. One time it was so bad that we had to take her to the hospital just to stop the pain. When I was younger I had the same problem.
“Should we call the hospital?” Clare whispered to me when Zoë pulled on her ear.
I hesitated. “How bad is it Zo?”
Zoë shrugged and continued to suck on her thumb. I wanted to tell her not to do that but I didn’t have the heart to reprimand her when she was sick.
Clare met my eyes. “Should we. . ..?” She asked. I knew what she was going to say but I didn’t want to have to resort to it. Zoë’s fever was extremely high, the highest it ever was.
I thought for a minute, but one look at my daughter’s glassy eyes and pale skin told me to say yes. “Hand me the phone,” I said after a few moments silence. Clare nodded and picked up the phone from it’s cradle. She dialed the familiar number, placing the receiver between my shoulder and my ear. I rubbed my daughter’s back as I listened to the ringing of the phone. I took a deep breath and wondered why I was so nervous about calling his number.
“Hello?” A voice picked up on the other side of the line after about four or five
rings.
“Hey, Andy?” I responded to my sister-in-law.
“Taylor!” She exclaimed. “How are you?”
“To tell you the truth,” I started, feeling the warmth coming from Zoë’s back, “not too good. Is the doctor in?”
“Is it Clare?” Andy asked, her voice becoming alarmed.
“Oh no!” I assured her. “Zoë’s running a high fever and I just wanted to ask my brother if he’s seen any kids lately who have the flu or something along those lines.”
“Aw poor Zoë! Tell her I hope she feels better,” she gushed. Andy half covered the receiver and called to her husband. “Here’s Ike,” she said after a moment or two.
“Thanks And.”
“Bye Tay.”
“Taylor?” My older brother’s voice appeared on the line.
“Hey Ike, I don’t mean to bother you so late.”
“You’re not bothering me, kiddo,” he reassured me. His voice was firm and calm. “Now, what’s wrong?”
“We can’t get in touch with Zoë’s doctor,” I began, “and I feel like I’m using you by calling you at home, but I didn’t want to call the. . . H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L.” I carefully spelled out the letters so my daughter wouldn’t get alarmed.
“You’re my brother, Jordan, you’re talking about my niece here, in no way are you ‘using me.’ Does she have a fever?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty high. She also says her stomach and her right ear hurts.”
“How high is ‘pretty high’?”
“103.2.”
My brother paused before speaking again, and when he spoke, he spoke slowly. “Give her some children’s Tylenol and monitor her temperature for a few hours. Take it about every half hour for the first two hours, then every hour for the next two. If her fever does not go down within the first hour give her a cold bath for about thirty minutes. Keep in mind though that after the bath her body temperature will need about twenty minutes to return back to what it really is. If her fever goes up at all, past 104 degrees at any point, take her to the hospital.”
“Will it be that serious?” I asked him.
“I’ve seen kids with very high fevers before,” he told me. “104 degrees gets into the dangerous zone, especially with children. We usually wrap them in cold blankets to try and get it down again. Has she been vomiting?”
“Not yet,” I replied.
“Chills?”
I looked down at my daughter’s face. “Her lips are quivering.”
“Tuck her in under her covers and remember what I said about the Tylenol and
monitoring her body temperature.”
“How many should we give her?”
“Two for now. If her fever doesn’t break by the morning, take her to her pediatrician.”
“Will do,” I said. I stood with my daughter in my arms and neglected to hand her off to my wife even though Clare was waiting to take her. I didn’t want Clare to get sick, she had babies to feed whereas I could get sick and not worry about it. I walked to the phone cradle as I ended my conversation with my brother. “Goodnight then, Dr. Hanson,” I joked.
My brother laughed. “I actually have work tomorrow,” he said. “Monday-- full schedule.”
“That’s because you’re the best,” I said.
“Ah little bro, you’re making me blush.”
I chuckled. “Thanks, Ike.”
“Any time.”
I hung up the phone and turned to Clare who was still waiting to take Zoë from me. I shook my head and walked past her, stopping in the doorway. “Hon, you can’t afford to get sick. You’re weak as it is.”
“What did Ike say to do?” She asked, ignoring me and following me into Zoë’s
bedroom. Clare rolled down the covers and tucked them around our daughter’s small body when I laid her down on her sheets.
“Give her two children’s Tylenol and monitor her temperature. He says if it gets any higher to take her to the-- H-O-S-P...” Clare nodded so I stopped spelling out the word and continued, “Also, if it doesn’t go down in the next hour, we have to draw a cold water bath.”
Clare nodded. “It’s nice to be related to Dr. Isaac Hanson.”
I smiled and kissed her lips gently. “And what about the record executive?”
“Him, too,” she replied, smiling secretively. “I’ll go get the Tylenol.”