Getting Sick on Vacation

This past weekend my family and I went away on a short weekend vacation. Twenty-four hours into our trip our four year old wakes me up in the middle of the night with a very high fever. What do you do? Here’s my first tip and I was lucky I passed by the medicine cabinet on my way out. Always take a fever reducer and a cold medicine for kids with you. At 2 oclock in the morning there aren’t a whole lot of options except a cold compress, drinking water and a fever reducer. The tylenol started to help after half and hour and we were all able to go back to sleep. Four hours later the fever is back, bigger and better – What do I do now??

It’s now 7am and I have no idea what to do except go the the concierge desk and ask for help. To my surprise he handed me two brochures for two different On-call doctors that will visit the hotel any time of day. Of course, there is a $300 fee for them to visit and you have to pay for the bill upfront with insurance papers for you to get reimbursed later. I did not want to wait so one of the on call doctors had a clinic close by. This clinic did have a service that would come pick you up at the hotel but since we had our car we drove our self. Actually as we are walking out of the hotel the bus for the clinic was stopping to pick someone else up so we got directions from him.

We spent 45 minutes waiting to see a doctor and got tested for strep and were checked for an ear infection and both were negative so they sent us on our way. The doctor did suggest lots of rest, fluids, a fever reducer like tylenol because he said sometimes Motrin is to hard on the stomach, and he suggested an over the counter cold medicine. Of course, the whole time I was able to call our pediatrician and let them know what was happening and get their opinion and they agreed with everything the doctor suggested. My suggestion would be always, always, always take fever reducer, benedryl, and a cold medicine with you before you leave for a vacation.