Carissa turned 11-months last Monday the 16th, and it came with a fever. By far, it must be the highest and longest so far.
The fever started on Saturday night when I noticed her forehead was warmer than usual. By morning, her mother agreed that our ‘little fireball’ was unwell.
We went through the day as any usual Sunday, but it was obvious Carissa was not her bubbly self. In church, she looked down, and broke down with tears when her mom left for the stage to do her Sunday duty. This has never happened, and so I tried to console her without much success.
One of the uncles in church eventually offered to help, and she stopped crying. That however didn’t stop Carissa’s fever from getting worst as we opted to give Carissa a quarter of paracetamol tablet to avoid her fever from escalating. We later purchased a proper liquid paracetamol for toddlers from a nearby pharmacy, before changing it to the one a doctor previously prescribed for Carissa when she had a fever a few months back.
Carissa’s fever eventually went down on Monday and we thought she was getting better. On the evening of her 11th month birthday, we brought her out for dinner to celebrate because her body temperature reading was good.
Unfortunately, her temperature escalated yet again after midnight, and despite going down a bit in the morning, her fever went up again on Tuesday night, with the liquid Paracetamol helping suppress it every four hours.
By Wednesday morning, Carissa was still ‘not her jolly self’ as she became excessively ‘manja’ towards her mom, in which she only wanted her mom and no one else. This new found preference caused some trouble because Carissa wouldn’t want to sleep unless it her mom held her tight in her arms.
On a normal day, I would have no problem putting the little girl to bed as I join in seeping beside here. Apparently I am not in her ‘tempat bermanja’ list this time, but I figure that is understandable since her mom has more ‘games’ with her, compared to my habit of just squeezing her because she is soo adorable. – Mind you, she doesn’t like that, but I do it anyway because it’s so irresistible =P
With Carissa being unwell, my wife took an emergency leave to stay with Carissa on Wednesday.
Thursday and Friday came, and Carissa’s health eventually returned back to normal with her body temperature now back below 37.5 degrees. However, her extra ‘manja-ness’ has yet to leave her and this has made things difficult, especially with her not wanting me.
Nonetheless, my wife and I soon found out through an article in BabyCentre.com that Carissa’s sudden preference in people was due to her recognizing that she is an individual and her own self. It also has a lot to do with separation anxiety, which explains her sudden cries when she finds out her mom is not nearby. Not really sure why Carissa doesn’t have much ‘separation anxiety’ when I’m not around, but I’m okay because she would seek me when she knows her mom is not around, although like most kids I guess, the mom does come first.
On Saturday, Carissa’s fever was practically gone, but her mom noticed she had this rash coming up. We weren’t sure what it was and so decided a trip to our Paediatrics was in order. He confirmed the rash, as well as the sudden fever to be known as Roseola or ‘Jerumut’ in Malay. He said there’s really no medication and that the rash is signs the fever, and the worst is over.
On Sunday, Carissa was already her own self although still a little bit more clingy than before.
So yeah, that’s about what happened last week, and soon the little rockstar would be a year! I’ve not blogged about her progress much ’til this post, but if you want to know, she’s now potty trained, able to mumble a few words, and has made a maximum of three steps so far, yet I still have this feeling like she was just born yesterday.
Uhh… time really flies.
