Yesterday, the kiddo with the toothache had a slight fever at bedtime. Today she bounced around 100°F.

We did some mental cataloging, trying to think of where she might have gotten sick. Of course, there were a couple sledding outings the last couple days, and one ride with mom to get some groceries drive-up style. Otherwise she’s been home with us.

The friends that they met for sledding had had a run of coronavirus through their house in the summer. They’ve been symptom-free since, and have had other tests to confirm. None of us is sure what happens if you’ve had it and survived, and then come into contact again; can you carry it without becoming infected. That’s one of the thoughts with the vaccines, right? The vaccinated should be protected from the worst virus symptoms, but may still be infected and contagious to others. We’ll see.

When she woke, she had about a 99°F reading, so we gave her some ibuprofen, to calm her and see if she could do school. She still had a very sore tooth, too. She also claimed to be a little dizzy and nauseated, and was clearly distracted, so we directed “no television, games, or streaming.” If she felt good enough for that, she could Zoom into her classes or other school meetings.

The wife called the dentist to get her in to check on the tooth. She’d been grumbling about it since Sunday, actually. With no other clear reasons for the fever, as she had no other symptoms of a cold, we thought maybe there was something wrong in her mouth. She and mom visited. She was probed and x-rayed, but no apparent visible causes were there. They discussed possible discomfort due to growth, and adult displacement of baby-teeth, and so on. The dentist did smooth a filling she had on the tooth, thinking maybe it was just moved enough to rub uncomfortably. This has seemed to fix everything, as no more tooth complaints have been made.

Later in the afternoon, she retired upstairs, probably to cheat and watch things on her iPad. She hit me up on Facetime a few times, to see if I was still around. We checked her temperature near the end of the day, and it was some decimals (changing with each thermometer swipe) 100°F on one side of her head, and the same variation of 99°F on the other. I gave her some more ibuprofen and suggested she come down for dinner when she felt better.

She did feel better after a short rest, and was fairly normal for the rest of the evening. At bedtime, she wanted to have more medicine (as we call it), but I told her we should wait for the 6-8 hour window, which was still an hour away, or the medicine could make her sick, or at least be ineffective. She agreed to go rest and wait, and I promised to check in on her with more medicine when I turned in about that hour later. She was fast asleep, though, so we decided to let her go until she woke in the middle of the night.

Everyone else also checked for fevers. There’s a little elevation in a couple of us, but nothing worrying. I’m rocking a 97°F, compared to my normal 95°F. The others are likewise within a few decimals of their normal.

No one has any new or unusual symptoms, either. It’s seasonally dry, and so many of us have sniffles or related post-nasal drip. While we have a humidifier on our HVAC, it only works while the furnace heats, which doesn’t seem to be enough to really make it not dry in hour home. We do use water vapor style humidifiers in our bedrooms at night, which also seems to help Some of us have some additional body aches and stiffness, but it’s the normal variety, both getting older (for the adults), and the ever encompassing cold of winter that seems to compel some stiffness. We’re also not doing as much as in the past, because of the stay at home orders.

Regarding that, the state has eased some restrictions, but we’re not making any moves to join the throngs, until we see if this dial-turn causes another mini spike. There’s apparently also a new, more contagious variety of the COVID-19 virus, so we’re hoping to avoid that.

Except for the feverish one, everyone’s healthy.