Lurgy

Kids' fevers are like ghosts. They jump up on you from nowhere, usually in the middle of the night, scare you half to death, then when morning comes around they are gone without a trace leaving you wondering if you dreamed the whole thing.

Boy has had a mild on again off again fever for a few weeks. He's been on good form so I figured it was one of those viruses that disappear themselves. In Scotland I might have taken him to the doctor the first time he was sent home from crèche. But here in Ireland I have to think twice if it is worth spending 40 euro for a doctor to tell me it's a virus that will go away itself. Last year I took him three times in the space of a month. That's some pricey virus, considering there's nothing else a GP can actually do.

So on Monday night when the fever returned I did my usual frantic google searches on "Celsius to Fahrenheit", "when to call your doctor" and "calpol and neurofen together?". I should be a human calculator for the first, and a human medical dictionary for the others the number of times I've entered these search terms since Boy was born. Not that a couple of fourteen year olds on Yahoo Answers advising cold baths and dialling for an ambulance really counts as consulting a medical dictionary.

We had the Calpol and baby Nurofen out and practically drilled Boy a new earhole by taking his temperature so often. Girl thought it was all a fantastic game and pretended to be asleep any time Boy was up only to start howling the second he was back asleep. Sometimes she mistimed it and we were all up together.

Tuesday morning: everyone is pink cheeked and sparkly eyed, looking like they've had really splendid night's sleep (except mammy and daddy, naturally). I keep Boy off crèche in case the fever returns. At lunchtime I think feck it, he's totally fine and I can't keep my eyes open much longer, so I drop him off at crèche. Twenty minutes later I get a call saying he has a temperature of 38.8, could I come and get him.

I don't stop to google the conversion. I know 39 is high and that's close enough. As I pick him up I can feel the disapproving stares from the crèche staff. I mumble something about him being fine when I dropped him off. I feel like the worst mother in the world, allowing my child to cast a sickly shadow over the super healthy glow of all the other kids. I feel sure they think I knowingly dropped him off with a high fever, probably because I wanted some peace and quiet. Then I stop to measure how much truth there would be in such an assessment considering how wrecked I am. There's enough recognition to feel guilty. The self imposed guilt combined with the recollection of him bounding around like a slinky this morning is enough to make me indignant about the dirty looks I may or may not have imagined. My head is tired and busy.

There is no doctor's appointment available until the following day. Boy's temperature creeps up and up despite maxing out on pain relievers. He is whining but too tired to tell me what he wants.

After another night of fun and games, during which Boy's temperature spiked to nearly 40 degrees before he started demanding Elmo and stories at 4am, post diarrhoea and Calpol. Girl was quite happy as long as everyone else was awake and entertaining her. When the sun came up - you guessed it, the kids were looking expectantly for entertainment, perfect temperatures and nothing but a runny nose and a smelly bin to show for the previous night.

We went down to the GP anyway. I was so sure she would look at me like I was crazy for bringing such a healthy looking child to see her that I didn't confess that his whining was because in my sleep deprived stupor I hadn't given anyone any breakfast. So she took his ravenous protesting and thermometer battered lugs for sickness and by the time the fever returned at 2pm Boy was already started on an antibiotic.

The TV embargo is out the window until I can get some sleep. So it's been an orgy of Sesame Street, Snow White and CeeBeebies much to Boy's snottery delight. If I find Boy and Girl hiding hot water bottles under the covers Dennis the Menace style when they see me coming with the thermometer in years to come I've only myself to blame.