If You Give Our Dad a Fever...

Well I'm thinking about a crazy hard week and the best way to sum it up is with a favorite book: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

If you give our Dad a fever, he might come home from work complaining of aching everywhere and say he's not interested in dinner and look like a ghost. The next morning he might wake you very early and tell you he feels terrible and ask you for help. When you take his temperature you might see it's 103... then 104 and sometimes higher and call his colleague and ask what to do.

If his colleague tells you to cool him in a bath and take him to the E.R., you would quickly draw him a bath and your three year old son might bring him his favorite bath toy for comfort. If the fever comes down for a little while but his head aches and is still 103 with Tylenol, you would call his Internist.

If the Internist tells you to take him to the E.R. you would drag him against his will down to the E.R. The fever would probably go down on the ride down to the hospital, with all the medicine he's taken and you would feel like this was a waste of time when you arrive and it wasn't that high. They might run some tests and ask lots of questions and take six hours and you might realize this was not as fun as just about anything else you could be doing with your day.

If they rule out meningitis and H1N1 and some scary things you might feel relieved and grateful and they might send you home. On the way home his fever might return and be 103 and you would put him in bed. If he rests and drinks fluids and stays medicated and still has a high fever and reports terrible muscle pain for the next day you might decide whatever this is you hope the no one else goes down with it, and stay busy taking care of three children.

If the fever breaks the second night but he tells you he has the worst muscle pains of his life and feels concerned you would remind him he's probably fine and tell him to rest and wait until the next day to feel better. You might try to make him eat, and distract him from the fact that but he's feeling so crummy. You might see it's easier to say than do.

If the next day he wakes and finds he is progressively weaker and in more pain and is becoming scared, you might call back the Internist and request to be seen sometime that day. If you go in to be seen and she tells you his spleen is enlarged, his weakness significant and he needs to be admitted to the hospital to see if this could be Guillain-Barrett, or something very serious you might also feel weak and scared. You might call your friends and family email more friends and ask everyone to pray. If you tuck him into his hospital room for the night, and he tells you he loves you like it might be the last time, you might want to cry. You might cry all the way home so you can smile and be fun when you walk in the door to see your kids. You might be pierced with the sense that life is painfully short, precious and something not to be taken for granted.

If you go back very early the next morning and meet the internist he might set you more at ease that the flu is going around and he has seen this muscle weakness in others. You might want to hug him. If the OSU Buckeyes are playing their first game of the season you might realize the tests will never be run and it's crazy to be in the hospital over Labor Day weekend. You would see how rotten he feels after being are woken every hour and having no sleep. If they finally get the CAT scan done he might feel horribly nauseous and miserable and scared and alone and realize this is how cancer patients and so many others feel indefinitely. He might say to you, "No one can get well in a place like this." You might laugh knowing this is where he works as well. You might want to comfort him but realize there's no way you can take this away. You might call his colleagues and some dear friends and ask for advice and try to be helpful and get him better care. You might feel intensely grateful to know such generous and kind friends and have such a supportive family.

He might finally get to see the MD at the end of a turbulent day and request to see the CAT scan and see that the results are normal and feel intensely relieved. He might watch the Husky game that night and see them play well for this first time in over a year. After you put your children to bed and get down to the hospital at 11 pm you might walk in and see him smiling for the first time in a week. He might even show you he's starting to feel stronger. You might feel so relieved you can't describe it and thank God and then go home and fall into bed.

The next day you might be trying to get everyone out the door for Church when he calls and tells you the good news: the tests rule out the scary things, he's feeling stronger, and he can come home. You might be exhausted and relieved as you pick him up. You might realize that he's feeling better but still feeling crummy and weak and sick and it's really frustrating. You might tell him wait, rest and wait some more and then see he is slowly feeling better. You might see that this "flu" or something has not only made Dad miserable but also scared you and your friends and family and wish that it had never happened. As he is slowly feeling better and you realize the outpouring of kindness from so many wonderful people, you might experience how something truly awful can have some good come out of it. You might hold onto the lessons of gratitude that life is so precious, our health so fragile, and our faith and friends so important.

Then you might hope and pray with gratitude that NO ONE else will ever have to get a fever....