The Fever Theory

Zachary is finally recovered after battling a very nasty ear infection last week. He has had about 3 of them in the past, but this was by far the worse one to date. He woke up in the middle of the night asking for a band aid for his ear :-( I gave him one, as he was relentless, and he put it right on his ear - it broke my heart. So the next morning was a trip to the doc to find a very swollen ear drum. On the way back from getting the antibiotics, he threw up in the car (always lovely when it's in the car!) After reading all of the info on ear infections, I found that vomiting is common in children who have ear infections. It was just that he'd never done that before with the others, most of which have been double ear infections, and this was only just one ear. But I guess the pain was that bad - poor guy. So he had the fever, the pain, and the overall yuks for a few days. But he's all better now!

My title of this entry comes into play here... I read a while back about someone's theory that has really seemed to prove itself time and time again with Zachary. It goes like this: Immediately following the end of a period of time where a special needs child has a fever, you will see a spike in their learning/attentiveness. I now fully believe this. I thought it was a fluke the first few times, but I swear it happens every single time. His language improves. His eye contact improves. His overall attention span improves. It's magic :-) But in thinking about it further, I do think it may just be possible that those things are occurring because he feels better now that the fever/sickness is gone - and that is making him seem "better". Who knows - all I know is that I hate to wish a fever on my child, but my goodness when we see such great changes in him the few days after the fever is gone, well - it's hard not to like it when he gets sick! (kidding!)

So that's pretty much been the last week+ with us. I am trying very hard to get what Halloween is all about across to him. He's loving all the decorations. He understands pumpkins, ghosts, witches, candy corn, "pretending to be ___", etc - but is definitely still totally in the dark when it comes to the idea and understanding of trick-or-treating. I've got some good books on that though and keep reading them to him, elaborating on what the kids are doing and that candy is fun and good and all that stuff. I think he'll definitely enjoy it, even if he doesn't really understand it or "get" that he's supposed to say trick-or-treat. But you know what - he's going to look so darn cute, he's going to enjoy himself no matter what's going on around him, and it will be a fun night! So if he doesn't fully understand it - we'll try again next year!