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2/5/1999 Sick Kids11:15 a.m. At 3:20 yesterday afternoon, I received a call from Daniel's school. He was running a temperature of almost 102 deg. I left immediately to pick him up and found him resting on one of the mats. Miss Dawn told me he had been quiet all morning, had slept the entire rest period (very unusual for him), and in the afternoon he had fallen asleep sitting up at the table. When she felt his forehead she realized he was burning hot. I brought him home and let him rest on the couch before we left to pick up Tab. He didn't seem to have any other symptoms except for slight nasal congestion, and his fever came down after I gave him Tylenol. This morning his temp. was back up, and he is coughing. Stephen, too, seems very listless. The two of them have been lying on the couch all morning. Whenever I sit down with them for a few minutes Stephen crawls into my lap and rests his head on my chest. Matthew seems fine, though. Tab's Uncle John died last night. A few months ago, Aunt Dot had put him into a home because his mental condition had deteriorated from Alzheimer's. He developed a lung infection this week and was admitted to the hospital earlier this week. Stephanie and Tab's cousin Lorraine had gone to the hospital to be with Aunt Dot and were present when he died. Aunt Dot's daughter, Johnatha, flew in from Florida late last night with her girlfriend. We don't know yet what the funeral arrangements will be. I will miss Uncle John. He was a kind, gentle old man, who would sit quietly on our sofa and fall asleep during the long family visits. When Daniel was a baby, Aunt Dot used to petrify him by swooping down on him with her loud, exuberant affection. Uncle John, in marked contrast, could get Daniel to laugh by quietly playing games of peekaboo with him. It was a shame that he never had grandchildren of his own. When Alzheimer's took away his mind and his memory, it was the beginning of Uncle John's death. What happened last night was just the last stage of a process that began a few years ago.
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