How sick is too sick?

Yesterday morning, J asked me for orange juice for his cold.

Boop! Boop! Warning bells sounding in my head.

I asked if he felt sick and he said no. I checked his forehead and asked him again and he said he was fine. Despite all of the progress we have made the last few years, J can still slip into echolalia and repeat things he has heard others say without them actually meaning anything.

Off to school he went. As soon as we got home I checked his lunch box. It was full! BOOP! Boop!

Okay, it was early dismissal so lunch is close to snack time, maybe he wasn't hungry. But it was PIZZA and a rice krispies treat virtually untouched.

Time to break out the "ther-MOM-meter".

I kissed his forehead and asked if he felt okay. No fever and he insisted he was fine. Then he took his pizza to finish. It took an hour but he finally finished.

Then the sneezing and the glassy eyes started. BOOP! BOOP! BOOP! I handed him a box of tissues as the Illness Diagnostic played through my mind:

Fever, no
Nausea, no
Appetite, iffish
Energy level, bouncing off the walls (aka normal)
Sneezing, check
Congestion, check
Runny nose, check
etc. etc. etc.

All in an attempt to decide what medication if any to give him and place him on the scale of:

1 - Go to the emergency room now
2 - Make a doctor's appointment for the morning
3 - No school
4 - Wait and see
5 - School as usual

Between dinner (which he ate) and bed time he was pretty miserable, so I tentatively put him at a #4 leaning toward #5 and plopped him in a nice warm bath a little early.

Luckily, other than being the classroom helper in class today, I didn't have any other obligations that couldn't be rearranged if he needed to stay home.

But on the heels of last weeks constant interruptions to my routine I wasn't looking forward to the prospect of keeping him here especially if he was going to be okay and just drive me nuts.

But, I didn't want to send him if he was just going to be miserable.

But, he would be more miserable missing school, especially because it was computer, physical education and speech day.

But, I don't want him to infect the rest of his class.

Ah, the constant second guessing of motherhood. Does it ever end?