Chapter 1: The Fever
At 104 degrees, my baby was burning up, but the doctor looked at me and said, “New mothers often panic over nothing.” My mother-in-law gave that satisfied little smirk, and my husband said, “She’s always overly anxious.” I said nothing and kept rocking my son. Then my 7-year-old daughter lifted her teddy bear and asked, “Dr. Sterling, should I tell you what Grandma gave the baby instead of his real medicine?”
Dr. Sterling slowly lowered his stethoscope. His eyes moved from my daughter to the amber prescription bottle tucked beneath the teddy bear’s tiny denim overalls.
The paper beneath him crinkled as he shifted against my chest. His skin felt frighteningly hot through his thin cotton sleeper, and his cry had weakened into a rough little whimper.
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I had brought him in because the fever would not break and the prescribed antibiotic seemed to be doing nothing. For three days I had followed the dosing schedule exactly. For three days the bottle should have been noticeably lower. It was not. I had tried to say so. Each time, the answer was the same: new mothers panic, I was overly anxious, my mother-in-law had raised three children and knew better than a woman who had barely slept.
Now the nearly full bottle was no longer in my purse. It was in my daughter’s hands, hidden under a teddy bear she had insisted on bringing into the exam room.
