Papa and I have been planning to host a steamboat dinner at home for my family and we finally decided to host it on Saturday, the eve of Mother's Day. We were excited and got everything prepared the night before and were looking forward to have my mom, sisters and kids around.
Unfortunately, Hayley came down with fever on Saturday afternoon. She refused to finish her porridge during lunch, her first signal to me that something was wrong which I didn't pick up. I thought she was just being naughty. Then we went out for a while and she was quiet and sleepy in the car, her second signal to me which again I didn't pick up. I thought she was sleepy as it was close to her nap time.
When we got home, she vomitted. That was an obvious signal. Immediately I took her temperature (although her body didn't feel warm) and she had a fever! We quickly fed her some fever medicine. From then on she was very clingy, grouchy and lethargic. She wasn't like that when she had fever when she was younger. She would still play and eat although she was running a fever. Now it was different. She look sick with watery eyes, runny nose and red lips. The scariest part was that she only wants to be carried, will only sleep with me or the papa cuddling her and refused to drink her milk! She only had like 12 ounches throughout the whole day and vomitted twice. Thankfully she loves bread and we tried to give her as much bread as possible.
Despite her conditions we still went ahead with the steamboat dinner as we do not want to disappoint anyone. Mom arrived slightly early to help prepare while I concentrate on attending to Hayley. Thankfully she was slightly better in the evening when her cousins arrived. Although she wasn't being herself fully, she was able to play and interact with her cousins and papa and I managed to eat peacefully while she played.
After everyone left later in the night, we fed Hayley her medicine and put her to bed. Her fever ranges from 37.5 - 38.9 the whole day, the highest reading taken in the middle of the night. If it touches 39, I would have freaked out. She couldn't sleep properly and woke up a couple of times crying and had to be carried to our bed to sleep on my chest. She often asked for her 'kut kut' ie water which we were more than happy to give.
Her fever continued to Sunday with the reading going up and down. I had to sponge her a couple of times when it went pretty high. The fever medicine Bifen (orange in colour) wasn't working that well too. Usually her fever would subside 30 mins after taking fever medicine and would only return 4 - 6 hours later but this time it didn't subside. Then we tried to give her another fever medicine called Dhamol (pink in colour). She dislike Dhamol and vomitted the moment we gave her the first sip. We had no choice but to continue with Bifen. Papa and I decided that if she didn't get any better come evening, we will bring her to the hospital.
With the fever, we continued to feed her with milk, fruits, bread, steam sweet potatoes and lots of water. She vomitted once (when we gave her Dhamol) and was showing improvements in the evening. We were slightly relieved.
The fever finally subsided at night. We gave her the last dose of medicine before bedtime (just in case) and that was it. This morning although the fever gone, she still had teary eyes and looked tired and lethargic. We decided to bring her to the clinic just in case. The paeditrician said although no sign of fever her throat was slightly red and there were some very mild spots/rashes (not yet showing and honestly I can't even see it) on her body. She suspected it was some form of a viral fever. She gave us oranged flavoured Paracetamol and flu medicine just in case. The bill came up to RM59, for a peace of mind!
As I was writing this, happy to say that the fever didn't return and she was back to drinking her usual amount of milk. Although she still looked pretty tired, she played and was back to being her naughty self. That was a clear sign that she is recovering :-)
That was how I spent my Crappy Mother's Day :-(. At home the whole time, worried sick about my little girl and not getting enough sleep!
On a separate note, when we got to the clinic, the nurses weighed her and measured her height. To my biggest disappointment, she gained only 0.07kg and 4cm in 2 months! I am quite happy with the height but utterly disappointed with the weight. I do feed her a lot on weekends and the babysitter confirmed the same for weekdays so I don't know what happened to all the food she ate?!
I have to say that I am not a fan of local tourist destinations but I found myself rather impressed with the bird park. I expect birds to be locked up in cages or sleeping or only a few birds were displayed but it was totally the opposite.
The bird park is pretty huge and for us to walk the entire park and only stopping to admire selective birds, it still took us almost 2 hours! If you are there at 12.30pm or 3.30pm, you can also catch some bird shows at the amphitheatre. There is also a playground nearby the amphitheatre for little kids to run about.
