The lass hasn’t shown much of an interest in “hiding” under things before, but suddenly did today, so I found a sheet and improvised a “house”. Great success. I guess I better get around to sewing that playtent I meant to make her.
30/365
This is an example of a scarlet fever rash. Though we only had it confimed Saturday. The lass does not have textbook illness progression (does anyone?), so I thought I’d not the progression here in case you, dear internets, find this by googling scarlet fever.
Wednesday: Daycare call me and tell me I need to pick the lass up as she’s running a fever. She get progressively warmer throughout the morning and is at 39,6 degrees celcius by mid-afternoon, I hold off on the painkillers, though, as she doesn’t seem to be particularly uncomfortable, just tired and cuddly. By bedtime the fever is down to around 38, so I put her to bed and she sleeps soundly. I check later – just before going to bed myself – and her temperature seems normal.
Thursday: Husband’s day off, so he keeps her at home. We never actually measure her temperature, as she seems fine and not particularly warm.
Friday: When the husband changes her in the morning, she has a rash, so they stay at home. She’s not showing any other symptoms of being ill, though, until the evening when she absolutely refuses to go to bed, seemingly complaining of a sore throat, and her temperature is up to just over 38 again. I put her in our bed and stay beside her until she falls asleep. I call the hospital helpline and describe the symptoms. The lady on the other end says it may well be just the usual fever-followed-by-rash children’s desease, but that it might just be scarlet fever, and since that is easily determined with a test and treatable, she asks us to bring the lass in the next morning.
Saturday: So we head to the emergency room, feeling somewhat sheepish, as the lass now seems perfectly healthy, apart from a rather faint rash. We’re supposed to leave her at her grandmother’s tomorrow and leave for a week in The Gambia, had we not been going away I think we would have waited to see our GP on Monday instead. The lady at the desk seems to think we are waisting their time. The doctor is more understanding, but he performs the test more as a “just in case”, he does not seem to think it will confirm anything. Almost to my relief (hey, I’m not just a hysterical mother hen) the test turns up a positive result. It is scarlet fever.
Now the rash, the possible sore throat and the fever are pretty textbook, except the rash was covering her shoulders, chest and back and her groin, hardly touching her face. The textbook also says the tongue may have a whitish coating at the start of the desease, changing to a bright red with a “strawberry” appearance later. Neither of these were apparent enough to be remarked.
Wikipedia also says: “For whatever reason, toddlers rarely contract scarlet fever.” Clearly, “rarely” does not equate to “never”.
29/365
Doing a course in C# for .NET at HiST this semester (paid for by my employer, did I mention I LOVE having an employer who actually cares, for once?) – this is what I should be reading nowadays.
28/365
I’ve been participating in a challenge at Just Bento, just to get into the habit of bringing packed lunches again – and spicing them up a little. This was the only picture I managed to take on the 28th, and since I missed the 27th totally, I guess it will have to do, I really can’t have two misses in a row…
26/365
Stoved away in the basement, now residing, newly scrubbed, in our kitchen cupboards. Three Cathrineholm pots with the lotus pattern – also one pan with yellow lotuses and a coffee pot in the same style but with stripes. Must find out more about these. Oh, there’s a Flickr group!
25/365
The keepers of my heart – out for a walk at Gardermoen while waiting for our flight back home.
24/365
My father and I looking at a photo album I discovered in a cupboard positively stuffed with pictures of my grandparents and their siblings from the 30ies.
23/365
It seems a bit callous, but as my grandmother is moving into a care assisted flat in a few weeks, we really needed to start clearing out the house a bit. Starting with the basement. My grandparents are of the generation that really didn’t throw stuff away. Last time my parents visited they discovered the coffe maker had a cracked pot. They couldn’t find a replacement pot, so they had to buy a new machine. My mom went to put the old one in the basement with the idea of handing it in for safe disposal/recycling later, and found not just one, but two older coffee makers there already. Needless to say they’ve all been adequately disposed off now…
So today’s picture is of one of the cupboards in the basement which we’ve now cleaned out. My mom had already started when I snapped this, getting rid of all the various plastic tubs and boxes my grandmother has kept in case they might prove useful at some point. The top shelf mostly contains the very durable jamming pots called “Norgesglass”. We might keep some, but the rest can be given to the local charity shop. As for the rest, we bagged it up and brought it to the local recycling station.
Now, see, I have packrat genes. I, too, keep empty containers to a ridiculous degree (and fill them again with jam, which we hardly ever eat, so I don’t quite know why I bother), so I totally understand why my grandmother’s cupboard looked like this. And there are plenty of treasures in among the “junk”. We did a lot of exclaiming with joy, in between the exclamations of exasperation. One day, I’m sure, my children and grandchildren will have to perform the same clearing out of my basement. Lets hope they, too, find things to exclaim about – with joy, as well as with exasperation.
22/365
My grandfather’s funeral.
21/365
The Lego Primo, because it’s so bulky, takes up an unwarranted amount of room now that it is not really played with much any more. Time to pack it away. It’s served its purpose, though, the lass caught on to building with those simple blocks long before she had any concept of turning the Duplo the right way round. But now it’s Duplo all the way.