If You Don't Worry About a 105 Temperature, When Do You Worry?

To say it's been a while since I've had a baby would be an understatement. My kids are 20, 17 and 15, so you can do the math, right?

But now that my granddaughter is running around this little house (and that's not just a figure of speech, she's twenty months old and just about her favorite thing in the world to do is run), it's all come rushing back - the diapers, the little tiny forks and spoons and dishes, the baby smiles and the baby cries, the toys scattered all over the living room floor.

One thing I had forgotten about having a baby is how difficult it is when the baby is sick. My granddaughter is twenty months old and has some sort of viral infection. Her temperature is spiking close to 105 degrees and she alternates from feeling okay and being close to her normal self to being weak and lethargic and very ill.

The last two days have seen her make two trips to the emergency room and two more trips to the pediatrician's office. The medical professionals say that there's nothing they can do for her and not to worry, that this will pass eventually and she will be fine. I'm no doctor, I don't even play one of TV, but how can you not worry about a temperature of nearly 105? This baby is tiny and that's a dangerously high fever!

Being a grandfather, you would think that I would be removed from most of the worry that goes along with having a very young child. In this case, though, she lives in our house in her mom's room while her mom goes to college. Right now she is at the hospital with her mom (my daughter) and her grandmother (my wife).

I'm sitting here with the phone next to me waiting for some word about how she is doing. It's not easy.

Don't get me wrong, I believe the doctors have a handle on what she is going through and that she really is going to be okay, but it's hard to watch your baby suffer, and I have to watch my baby watch her baby suffer. It sucks.

If you're reading this, spare a prayer if that's your thing - or at least a thought, if prayer's not your thing, we're not fussy - for a little tiny girl who doesn't even understand what is happening to her. I'm sure she would appreciate it. I certainly do.