F.O.U.O.

Yes, that's right, it was another Fever of Unknown Origin day. We love those. Dennis gets cranky and feverish sometime around midnight and we get up with him and calm him down and put him in bed with us, where he tosses and turns and whimpers and kicks and none of us get much sleep. Many times he feels fine once the morning comes and wakes up all happy and cute while we feel cranky and irritable from lack of sleep. That didn't happen this morning. He woke up at 7 and was returned to his bed, and at 9:30, he woke up and asked "Moobee?" (which means he wants to watch a movie on his portable dvd player). We set that up for him and he promptly fell asleep again. At 10:30 I tried to feed him a little breakfast, but he didn't want it. At 11:30, his temperature had reached 103.3 and I gave him tylenol and followed it with motrin 2 hours later. He didn't want to eat and he didn't want to play. He acted like he wanted out of his crib, but he cried when I picked him up. And then he cried when I put him down. He held my hand all the way to the kitchen, crying, and I made him some Kool-Aid. All he wanted to do was drink. Once he rejected food again and cried to get down, I returned him to his room. He requested a movie again, so I set him up in the crib with his favorite stuffed animals, a few comfy pillows to lean against, and started a movie for him. Half an hour into the movie, I heard him calling me (well, I heard him calling for "joosh", which is juice) to request a drink refill, and I complied of course. He just kept on crying, and he had some chills from the fever and his little legs were shaking.

When David came home for lunch, he tried to get him to eat and we decided to take him to the pediatrician. We called for an appointment, but after they didn't answer their phone for 20 minutes, we went ahead and loaded up and headed north. We finally got through when we were about 10 minutes away (we'd been calling for nearly an hour). They told us they had no appointments and David vented a little frustration on the receptionist (politely, though) and got transferred to a nurse that agreed he needed to be seen today. As always, Dennis was happy and cheerful in the car, pointing out trucks to us and talking (as if he wasn't sick at all, but bored and wanted to create a little excitement). At the doctor's office they worked us in much more quickly than we'd hoped, and they tested him and ruled out strep throat, kidney trouble, or a bacterial infection. His ears were clear and his throat wasn't red. Watching him endure the strep throat test and blood draw will give me nightmares for several nights. David was holding him down, and he got a little upset as well because Dennis was screaming and struggling so hard. But it wasn't throat trouble or an infection, so we were at a loss. He was having some reflux issues but not real violent stomach trouble. So it's officially a mystery illness, and we will be waiting and hoping it goes away soon. He only ate 2 crackers today, all day, and that's part of the reason for our concern. This the first day he's ever felt too bad to eat. He loves to eat, and it scared us when he just pushed it away and cried.

He's in bed now, and we've been checking on him. He isn't running a fever anymore and we'll start him on a bland diet tomorrow. The doc said to keep an eye on him and call if there were any significant symptoms that developed (she gave us a list of things that we hope he won't exhibit), but otherwise he probably had a little virus and would be better by the weekend. I certainly hope that's the case. I felt so helpless when he was so miserable. He acted like he wanted me to hold him but then was too uncomfortable when I did. Gosh it's hard to see your child sick. He's a strong little guy, though, so I feel pretty confident that he'll bounce back soon. I'm extremely hopeful, anyway. And of course I didn't take a picture of him today when he felt so bad.

Keep him in your prayers. He's so little to be so miserable.

This was one of the harder parenting days we've been through. It's so hard when you can't fix their hurts.