PART 3 — FULL STORY / AVAILABLE PORTION
FULL STORY — PAGE 1
The 104-Degree Fever
My baby’s temperature had reached 104 degrees.
I was terrified.
But Dr. Sterling initially treated my fear like another example of an anxious new mother.
My mother-in-law seemed pleased by that.
My husband supported her.
“She’s always overly anxious.”
I didn’t argue.
I kept rocking my son.
Then my seven-year-old daughter lifted her teddy bear.
“Dr. Sterling, should I tell you what Grandma gave the baby instead of his real medicine?”
Everything changed.
Inside the teddy bear’s overalls was my son’s prescription bottle.
The pharmacy label was still intact.
The liquid level was almost unchanged.
My daughter explained that Grandma had poured the baby’s real medicine down the sink.
Then replaced it with “purple sleepy medicine.”
My mother-in-law immediately tried to discredit her.
“She’s seven. She gets confused.”
My daughter didn’t back down.
“I took his real medicine out of the trash because his name was on it.”
Dr. Sterling stopped dismissing the situation.
He had the bottle secured.
He ordered the baby moved into a treatment room.
And he asked which purple medicine my daughter had seen.
“The one Grandma keeps by her bed. It says nighttime.”
That was when I stopped trying to convince anyone I wasn’t overreacting.
The evidence was already in the doctor’s hands.
