Winter Illnesses

December was barely underway, and we had started the rounds of winter illnesses. We had one child down with strep throat on Dec 2nd. The doc said to call if anyone else in the household got it within 4 days and he'd call in the prescription(s).

Well, it was 5 days, and it was after 5 pm. I picked up the kids at daycare, and drove immediately to urgent care. Child #2 had complained that morning of a "sore mouth" (pointing to the back of the throat) but otherwise seemed perfectly fine... complained again at pick-up. But more the reason for the urgent care trip, was the third child who was gagging/near-choking in the back seat, and also complaining of a sore throat. :(

I wasn't finished filling out paperwork, when the gagging child was crying (no, not just crying - the loudest and saddest cry you've ever heard) in a very crowded waiting room (I think the whole varsity wrestling team was there). A fever had spiked in those few minutes causing the cry. We were seen fairly quickly, the doc made a quick call to the closed peds office down the hall, and they wrote the scrips for suspected strep without even a screen.

4 days later, our thumb-sucker had a very sore, enlarged thumb. That night at bathtime, Jock noticed a few sores that he tried to lance. We kept ointment on it and a sock to curb the thumb-sucking. We're guessing this child (the gagger) didn't have strep after all, because a nasty cold/cough proceeded the possible strep diagnosis... and that the cold virus entered her thumb somehow. Well, since it was the weekend, not much thought was given the swolen thumb until after Sunday naptime, when we realized it had grown more (by size and soreness) but now was too late for an urgent care visit. Daddy made the trip at 7 am Monday morning, and found out that, yes, it was in fact a viral infection, and off they go to the pharmacy for an antiviral.

So, just for review, we have one child almost finished with a 10-day round of antibiotics, two children about half-way through their 10-day rounds of antibiotics, and one child starting a 5-day round of antiviral. Sheesh! Line up those syringes! Yup, all different dosages. Nice!

Two weeks later, just as we'd finished with those meds, and one child throws up. At this time it was 9 days before Christmas. Said child only threw up once (and at our friends' house as we were leaving our Thursday night Bible study), was fine the next day except for an unusual 4-hour nap, fine day 2 post-vomit (when we all made a break to go see Santa), and then woke up day three covered with diarrhea. :( The next day, an adult in the household comes down with the same stomach virus (sans vomit), which, three days later is still plaguing said adult. Oh, and the one-vomit child now has a cough too.

So here we are, three days before Christmas, and we're hopeful, but not very optimistic, that ALL of us are going to have a HEALTHY and happy christmas. Please pray for health to return and the illnesses to leave. Maybe January will be healthy. December sure wasn't!

My next task after surviving the holidays, is to deep-clean my entire house. You may not want to visit until after that, unless your house has already been plagued with any or all of the above-mentioned illnesses.