A week ago DD was very ill and we took her to A&E where she was admitted for 5 days - suspected meningitis at first then a brain tumour (it's been an interesting week, to say the least!) but luckily those have both been discounted and it's now either a virus or bacterial infection, they're still not sure. She is home now and on antibiotics (though I'm not sure why, as blood cultures haven't grown any bacteria, so surely must be a virus?) They said she could come home if I monitored her temperature and that I had to take her back if we had more than one spike where her temperature went over 38C. Well it did go over (went to 38.6 before I gave her ibuprofen) and it has been down for about 20 hours since then. Sometimes she is more or less her usual self, but has bouts of extreme irritability and gets very tired and has zero appetite (she is eating small amounts but it's a real struggle). Anyway, both she and I are terrified of having to go back in (it was awful there for her and I think it was doing her more harm than good) and I don't understand why we have to go back. They said they probably wouldn't change the plan of keeping her on abx and they would just monitor her temperature - but I can do that at home, so can't I keep her here? I can confidently manage her fever and I'd take her in if it got to a scary temp, like over 40C or something, or if she got really ill again. You wouldn't take a child to hospital just for a temp of 38 or 39C, as long as they weren't very ill with it, so I really don't see why I can't keep her at home. If it goes above 38 again I will ring them and ask but I want to be confident in my decision to say I'm going to manage it at home and that I'm refusing to take her in.
What do you think? (sorry, has been a long post!)