Ahh...the firsts just keep coming even after 2 months. Poor little Kathlena started to run a temperature yesterday afternoon. It dawned on me that neither children have been sick since they have been with us. On one point this is truly amazing considering their health and immune systems. We have been working hard though since the beginning to build them up. I think that they are both doing quite well.
Kathlena was running between 101 and 102 temp best we could tell with our flaky ear thermometer. She ate no lunch which was our first big tip that something was up! This child usually runs to the table yelling "eat, eat!" like the town cryer. I gave her some elderberry and yarrow and then put her down for nap.
I had actually upped her immune boosting herb intake a week ago because she has had a place come up on her face that is
molluscum contagiosum virus (MCV). It is a virus that generally attacks weakend immune systems and causes breakouts on the body that look similar to a pimple. She had some of these places on her face actually surgically removed while in the orphanage but seems that didn't work very well to get rid of it since she still lacked the immune system to fight it off. I have had her taking Sovereign Colloidal Silver, Olive leaf(natural anti-viral, anti-bacterial), Echinacea and Goldenseal, grapefruit seed crush(one drop in cup of water) and bilberry (for her eyes) and cod liver oil. All of this is in addition to the raw milk, kefir, fresh organic produce and meat we try to eat regularly.
Considering we had an unreliable thermometer and not sure how she would respond to a fever I watched her closely for signs of it spiking. She mostly laid around sleeping off and on and asking to watch a "moo-ee," translated "movie" which I think this is the first time she has ever asked for this...usually she prefers to be where the action is...with Mom. Her compassionate brothers were all to quick to comply with her request and even offered to pick out the movie and watch it with her. They were quite concerned and did watch after her closely trying to keep her as comfortable as possible with blankets and juice--very sweet.
Throughout the day she did go "poo" many times so I am thinking maybe she was a little er...ummm...stopped up. I have read that sometimes in children this can cause them to run a fever and is not viral infection. I can't be sure but not to be too graphic she really cleaned out her system which i had been a little concerned about over the past week.
With another dose of Mom's elderberry-yarrow-wolfberry extract her fever seem to subside some and she felt well enough to eat dinner. IT was fried catfish night with southern cornbread--she wasn't going to miss this meal. Now she was not herself as she was very quiet and staring off into the distance between bites eventually giving way to sitting in Daddy's lap to finish up and drink her special "tea" of chamomile, yarrow, and peppermint. Then she was off to take her bath which did seem to make her feel better...didn't think of it at the time but should have put some lavender oil or tea tree oil in her bath water. Well I will try to remember that for next time. I have a great resource I refer to for using herbs with children called
"The ABC Herbal" by Steven H. Horne. While I don't believe in all of his techniques I have found much of the information helpful and easy to refer to when needed.
After her bath she was ready for bed. Since this was our first time to go through her being sick we did give her a half dose of infant Motrin before bed in case she spiked a really high temp during the night. Emily had agreed to sleep on the floor next to her so she could hear her if she got up in the night and was sick. I actually woke up twice during the night and had to check on Kathlena...she was sound asleep...still with a fever but sleeping soundly. She slept all night and woke up the next morning with a low grade fever but was feeling so much better. She had a good breakfast and was ready for our walk...of which she ran her laps with brothers. No one would think that she was sick now! She continued to improve throughout the day and had little to no fever by bedtime tonight. I will keep her on the herbs especially since we have the
THSC Conference next week...we want everyone well for that! It will be their first home school conference.
