Burning Up

Hypotonia makes Felix super flexible

Our little contortionist

I was really happy to see that, apart from a bit of a runny nose and a tiny rattle in his chest, Felix seemed almost 100% better today. He was happy, and very much his usual self, right up until 5pm tonight when he started to get a bit grizzly. Our niece (Tahlia) is staying with us at the moment, so she picked Felix up and sat him on her lap while I cooked dinner. I was watching him, as I cooked, and noticed his body starting to get really floppy. Children with Down Syndrome usually have hypotonia (poor muscle tone), and with Felix, it's a lot more evident if he's really tired or if he's sick. He melted into Tahlia, like a newborn baby. He was struggling to hold his head up and looked like he was about to fall asleep. When I picked him up, I noticed he was running a fever and was completely lethargic. Poor little man.


As I still had dinner to cook, Nathan took Felix from me and had cuddles with him. I gave him some Panadol to try and lower his temperature, but he spat most of it out. He used take medicine so easily, but hates it now. It wasn't long before Felix fell asleep on Nathan's shoulder, and we were able to lay him in his bed. I think we're in for a long night. I just went to check on him, several hours later, and he's still burning up. I really hope we can manage to get his fever down before we go to bed. If we can't, I think he'll be sleeping with us so we can keep an eye on him. I thought we had managed to escape him getting the flu, with just a mild case of croup instead, but it seems that's not the case.

On a lighter note, I'm going to post a funny video of Felix from a couple of days ago. He was playing with an app on his ipad, and signing the words which went with the pictures; car, boat, plane etc. When he touched the fire engine he made a face, instead of signing the word. Each time the siren sounded, he did the same face again. I was laughing so much, I kept getting him to touch the fire engine over and over, and he kept doing the face. He's such an entertainer. I love how he knows what to do to make us smile. I really hope he's better soon so we can have our crazy boy back.