While some illnesses manifest with fever, she said a "cold" and then "lung infection". Respiratory illnesses, especially colds in young children manifest with runny nose, watery eyes and a certain look on the face.
Snipped by me, but I have one kid who looks ill for weeks after even a minor cold, and one kid who has to run an incredibly high fever before even
beginning to look sick. He also rarely has a runny nose with his colds, just a chesty cough. Neither kid runs a fever unless they are incredibly ill, seems to be once every couple of years for about 12 hours. Good for them, but a pain for having a "valid" reason to miss school. I think Mikaeel likely
was sick and off for a week or so (school only went back on the 7th, and they haven't said how long he was ill during the break) with a perfectly boring illness, and after having the kids all home and likely squabbling over Christmas holiday it pushed RK to the end of her rope. She snapped, Mikaeel dies, she covers it up.
It will be interesting to see whether or not she had the chest infection diagnosed, but not necessarily indicative of anything by itself. My general guidelines for taking the kids in for a nasty cough is (1) if it lasts more than two weeks, (2) if there is wheezing, or (3) my mommy sense says there's something off. MY GP said those are good guidelines, because most respiratory illnesses are viral and there's nothing to do but wait for it to run it's course. Even going out for dinner doesn't surprise me, because my own kids tend to go from ill to perky to ill again in the blink of an eye with that sort of illness- just before Christmas both kids were exhausted and too lethargic for school, slept for another hour, and woke up feeling peachy keen. I took the little monsters to school late that day, because I can only listen to so much arguing over who touched whose Lego. :facepalm: That was in the middle of the Three Weeks of Plague, when one or both of the school-aged kids were sick every day, and a lot of school was missed. Running around nursery always made them feel worse while they were on the mend (exercise led to coughing), so I'd keep them out until they recovered; I can't really do that now they are in school, and their recovery time is a lot longer because of it.
As an aside, was the rumoured visit (reported by a neighbour, I believe) from the police on Sunday (when the older kids' father went to see them and found RK out) ever confirmed? I wonder if Mikaeel was seen then? Child Services likely would have gotten involved after an incident like that as well, so it might have played a role in RK's state of mind.
