Raiyan has had a fever since Monday evening. We’ve been giving him ibuprofen whenever his temperature gets above 39, which will result in the fever going down but somehow it keeps creeping back up at night. Raiyan weighs 21kg at 4.5 years, so you can generally consider him to be at a healthy weight. Because he was breastfed for 18 months, Alhamdulillah Raiyan was rarely ill for the first 3 years of his life. But soon after his fussiness with food started, coinciding with him going to school, he then began to get the bug on average, every other month. But even then, it would usually last for only 2-3 days tops.
But around late last year, it started to worsen. The last 2 bouts in particular lasted longer than a week and with the latter, he even had to be admitted to the paediatric ward to get a drip because his fever was just not budging.
As some of you know, autistic children can be very sensitive to touch. So not only was Raiyan already crying when the doctor was checking his chest, ears and throat, he went absolutely berserk when we were trying to insert the drip into his hand. As his mother, I am the first to admit that it was a complete nightmare to watch and I pray I never have to go through that again. There were 5 different adults holding him down for about 10 minutes before the tube was actually in. Even after that, the nurse had to put rolls and rolls of bandage over his wrist and hand to avoid him pulling it off.
The minute we exited the nurses’ room, we were naturally greeted with the shocking stares and glares of others. Yes, he really is that loud. And no, that does not mean he is a spoilt brat who is constantly pampered that he can’t handle a little pain. (Yeah, I can sense what some of you think).
I’m sure I can speak for all parents that whenever possible, we would like to avoid our children getting admitted overnight in the hospital. It’s just so uncomfortable and inconvenient and we would just rather go to our home sweet home and have our child rest there. But for an autistic child, this discomfort is magnified a thousand times over. Raiyan being autistic hates change and has always strongly resisted to a new environment. So you can imagine the agony he was in. For starters he was ill and ALREADY feeling lousy. Then he had the trauma of 5 people touching him and strapping him down to put a plastic tube IN his hand, AND is STAYING in his hand. Then he had to sleep in a strange bed, with different sheets, different pillows and a different blanket. Every time a nurse even so much as breathe next to him, he’ll start having a fit. And pweshes mama couldn’t be with him as I had to go back and nurse 1 month old Addin who was feeding round the clock. Times like these we have no choice but to bring out what else but the ANIMALS!
But even the animals DVDs, books and magazine pweshes babah brought can only entertain him for so long. I think the stress Raiyan was experiencing was so clear and obvious to the doctor that he actually released Raiyan later that night but at the same time making sure Raiyan comes back at 6:00 the next morning to get his next dose of medication!
Alhamdulillah, the drip worked and his fever virtually disappeared the next day.
The reason why Raiyan had to be put on a drip was not because the flu bug was just SO STRONG that he needed the medical intervention. It’s basically just because he didn’t want to drink water. Because of Raiyan’s fussiness with food (and drink), he usually just drinks juice and hardly any water. So whenever he gets sick, his dislike for water becomes his detriment. Yes, orange juice helps but still it wasn’t enough. He still needed to drink lots of lots of water but he was probably just taking in 5% of the volume he was supposed to be drinking. It is times like these that the fussiness caused by the autism really gets in the way because more likely than not, his sickness would probably go away a lot faster if only he would drink water.
So you can understand my anxiety for the last 2 days, checking his temperature repeatedly to ensure that it’s not too high because I really hope and pray he doesn’t have to be admitted like the last time.
Alhamdulillah, it has only been coasting around 39 (whereas before it even went up to 41!) and this morning he seems to be getting his energy back. His therapy has immensely helped Raiyan and us in dealing with him being sick this time round because now we know how to “negotiate” with him to make sure he drinks his water! (Just to remind you, if we wanted to do that before, because of Raiyan’s speech delay, he would not have understood what we are saying to him). Yes, these have included bribes to watch TV, to go to the pet store, to play on the computer etc but we don’t care because it worked! Even though he would drink it from a spoon or a syringe, nevertheless we get the results we want because he would usually finish half a glass of water every time.
I am also thankful for the therapy because he has learnt to express his feelings a bit, like happy, sad, tired, sleepy etc. So for the first time ever, he actually told us that he’s feeling sick and sleepy. And when he was feeling better, he told us he was feeling happy. You don’t know how great that is for Jeff and me because ALL this time, we always just had to guess or assume what he is feeling but could never be too sure.
So what we’ve seen for the past 2 days really means a lot and can help to slowly minimise that fear of mine. Of course I am forever thankful that with just 7 weeks of therapy he is able to do this already. Alhamdulillah.
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