recovery day

Zoe ran a fever every other week, first one starting on her birthday, so we rescheduled her party to two weeks later. Then she had a fever that evening too, then again two weeks later, and again...and again. The first one Jamie brought her in to the doctor and they ran every test (blood, cath, xray, flu, strep, etc) and then told us it was something viral. :( The next two we let go, thinking why spend another $500+ (we have a deductible plan) to hear that it's just viral again. The 4th one, only lasted one day, and the 5th one I decided to bring her in again because I couldn't believe she had a fever again! All of them were about 101-102 degrees except this last one went up in the 104s. The doctor said it sounds like "Periodic Fever." We had to do more blood draws to rule out some other ailments (which all came back negative). Basically Periodic Fever is when they get a fever periodically every set number of weeks (anywhere between 2 and 6 weeks) and then it just keeps recurring without any other symptoms other than swollen tonsils and sometimes sores in the mouth. It resembles strep throat but isn't and it can last anywhere from 6 months to years! I had never heard of this before and its only been classified as an actual disorder since the late 1980s.

My first thought was...I'm going to have to quit my job! I can't take off every 2 weeks! The doctor said since it isn't contaigious, she can write a doctor's note to daycare saying she is able to go, but when Zoe is running a fever she just wants to be held and doesn't want to be held by just anyone. Since the tylenol & motrin weren't keeping the fever down, the doctor gave us a prescription for prednisone (a steroid). Apparently the treatment for periodic fever is either steroids or a tonsilectomy (which works in 90% of cases). One of the side effects of steroids is "irritability"...yeah right...that's putting it mildly! I decided steroids were out...tonsilectomy is going on the agenda! When we went to ENT for her consult visit (and we pried her mouth open) the doc got a quick look and said, "Yes, she is definitely a candidate for a tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy." She had surgery on March 15th. Everything went fine, and the insurance deductable is definitely met for the year! Now we're hoping to be in the fortunate 90% that it works for! :)




Here she is sleeping the day of her surgery. She slept most of the first day, then went back and forth between being happy and crabby (can you blame her?) the rest of the week.