Penang -- Week 13 -- It's a Virus

SUNDAY & MONDAY
I know you're going to say it's because we took him salsa dancing last night. But it's really not. Regin has a fever, his first one. He's fine; slightly clingier than normal, but otherwise he's his bouncy self. But as the day goes, his fever goes up and down and peaks at 102.8F. I've checked all the literature we have with us, and it looks like this is a medium grade fever, and nothing to be too alarmed about. It's also in the optimum zone for helping to fight off whatever bug he's got, so we don't really want to reduce it. We can start to really worry if it ever gets to 104.

The main difference (I imagine) with going through your child's first fever in Malaysia versus America is: in America I don't imagine you'd be researching symptoms of Malaria and Dengue to be certain that it's just a average, run-of-the-mill fever, and not something more sinister.

Monday is another holiday for George, this time because of the king's birthday. Today we're spending it together at home, taking care of our boy. His fever is just as strong, so we decide to take him to see his doctor.

Dr. Goh seems alarmed when we tell her the temperatures Regin's had. Ugh, doctors bug me. I have done a lot of reading on this, I know I shouldn't be alarmed, but I set my foot in the doctor's office and they suck me into their world of fear again. I hate this! She says it's just some kind of little virus (does no tests and takes no temps or anything to confirm there is something wrong with him) and he'll be fine, but we need to give him fever reducers or cool him down with baths and wet cloths or his fever could spike up suddenly and he could get febrile seizures which are relatively common in children of his age group who have high fevers.

Monday night we're still watching his fever, and when it goes above 103, we cool him down with the old-fashioned methods. She's scared me enough for that, but I'm not ready to give him medications just yet, not when I know that fevers are beneficial, and medications can be harmful.


TUESDAY - THURSDAY
Regin's fever has passed by Tuesday, but by Tuesday afternoon he's covered in a rash.
My research leads me to suspect Roseola, which is also nothing to worry about, but with the scary illnesses here, I still want to go back to his Doc to be sure. I take him on Wednesday and she says, "virus," and that's pretty much that. He looks sad, but he's his normal self now that the fever has passed.

We have no functioning internet. All day Tuesday I'm watching my computer struggle to load a single page. It's not happening. I'm connected, but the internet is so slow, it's not usable. Wednesday evening we head to the mall for free wifi so I can download some software upgrades, etc.. This is ridiculous! We're paying good money for fast internet at our apartment! I've really had it with this company. They told us they had a few calls about the internet being slow and they'd contact us with a solution in a week or so. That was weeks ago. Now it's not even usable! I can't check my email or do anything else! I don't care what the cost is of getting a phone line and getting internet that way. We hear it's slow and expensive (if you don't already have the phone line), but slow is better than completely non-functioning. We have to remember to call Joo Lee to get the phone line put in.

No play group again. But it's Father's Day this weekend. Maybe that's why.