Ancient Wisdom

Ya Tou finally recovers from the stomach flu. Thank God..

Her fever roller coaster (going up to a max of 40.4) kept us sleepless... There was one night the fever went up really high. Worse, she refuses water and no matter how we sponge her, the fever stayed above 38.5.

It all started when we took her temperature in the middle of the night as realise that it was 39.9. We quickly sponge her with water mixed with a couple of cubes of ice. (we din wanted to use ice water as we were afraid she might catch a cold and makes things worse). After many rounds of sponging, her temp lowered to about 38.8.

Water was given to her, but she simply refuses it. She still looks active and playful despite her fever and was blabbering lots of things. I wonder if she got "high" on her fever or what.

We had to resort to sweeten water to encourage her to drink, luckily, she finally accepted the diluted Gripe water, taking up to about 5 oz. After she drank, daddy somehow decided to wrap her up in towel. In the next 10mins, things turned. She started to perspire and her temp begin to fall. Within the 30mins, her temp fell to about 37.3. We continued to wrap her up in blanket and carry on feeding her water. Soon she fell asleep. By the next morning. Her temp was normal.

Can't help but start to appreciate the days when our grandparents / parents tells us, if you are sick, drink lots of water and cover well with blanket. With the advancement of western medicine, these old sayings are somehow slowly lost. Yet during the most critical times in life, it seems to work like charm.

Well I have to conculde that Western Sponging and Eastern Blanket-ing is really 鸡寒上树，鸭寒入水。Somehow, ancient wisdom seems to be slightly superior, as it
1. eliminates the inner heat (root cause).
2. uses that heated body temp to facilitate persparation.
3. minimise the risk of catching another cold

Subsequently nights, we encourage her to drink by cooking Green Apple water. It can be easily concoted by boiling cut green apples in water until the apple turns soft. Somehow she likes it alot. Probably becos of the slightly sour taste that excits her (probably) numb taste buds and the slight sweetness of it.