Lessons Learned from the Crud!

Well, I've learned a few things over the last several days. Things you think someone with my medical background should know. But some of us are just stubborn, I guess, and maybe this was God's way of helping me be more compassionate, especially in this season of the year when all the flu viruses, RSV viruses and human rhinoviruses (among others) are floating around in the air seeking whom they may attack!
LESSON #1: A fever is a fever if the temperature is higher than what your body usually runs. In my medical training, I was taught (at a pretty reputable training institution) that a temperature is not a fever unless it is 100.5 or higher. That always sounded good to me. I'd have patients insist to me that their temps always ran low and if they had a 99 temp then it was a real fever. I would just kind of grin and think- I'm not going to fight this battle today and move on. Well this week, I've had the crud. For 3 nights I've run a fever, that by my previous standards was not really a fever. But let me tell you, I felt yucky, my head heart, my eyes burned and I was burning up all over, and that thermometer had the audacity to read only 100.1! If the average normal temp is 98.6 and a "real fever" is 100.5, then 1.9 degrees above normal is a real fever! My temp usually ran 96.9-97.2, so technically (in my new estimation) a 100.1 temp is a real fever. Just for the record, this will change my practice. If someone is just slightly hot, but they feel bad with it, it is probably a real fever! (On the flip side, some people run around 99 all the time, especially little bitty peeps, but I'll take that all into account.) It's always good to be learning new stuff......
LESSON #2: Pregnant women are more susceptible to catching things they normally wouldn't catch- beware! I'm a pediatrician. I see on average 30-40 kids a day. 75% of them are sick (maybe more in the winter time). It is not uncommon for me to have 3-4 rooms filled with kids with "real fevers" and all kinds of other symptoms all day long. I get coughed on, sneezed on, puked on, peed on, you name it, it happens. I rarely catch the crud, I may get 1-2 upper respiratory infections a year, they are usually mild and I rarely get a stomach bug that lasts more than a day or so. God has blessed me with a pretty strong immunity. But I had read (and just put it away somewhere in my brain) that a pregnant woman's immunity is decreased so as to not reject the baby. This causes her to be more susceptible to things she wouldn't be susceptible to. So Watch out and Germ-X you are my friend!!!
LESSON #3: Little kids are much tougher than we give them credit for!! Now this is not a new lesson for me. I'll tell parents this all the time. But I have been reminded of this over and over again over the last few days. There has been a recent push in the medical community to not use over the counter cold medicines in very young children because of reports of serious side effects and even overdoses in young children (especially babies) with over the counter meds. This has caused the FDA and well known pediatric societies to encourage practioners and families not to use thes meds especially in kids under 2 and now there are even big warnings on the medications that have been used safely (by many people) for many, many years. Certainly, because of these warnings, I've changed my practice and will not recommend the doseages of over the counter cold meds that I used to, especially in babies. My new mantra has been, "use a humidifier, frequent suction, nasal saline spray and tylenol". I felt like this was the safest, and still do. Having said that though, these little babies have to be just miserable since we can't give them much to help with their symptoms!!! Being thankfully pregnant, I've not been able to take many of the regular meds that I would take to help with the crud. Please know, I'm not complaining. It just made me realize how miserable the little peeps really feel, since they can't take many of these same meds (just because of their young ages) and it makes me hold them in even higher regard! I hope I've been as tough as they are.