Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Quarantine

This blog is officially under quarantine. In fact, I am putting my whole house and everyone in it under quarantine. Not contact with the outside world until every last germ in the house is gone. UGH!

Jacob came home from school on Friday with a weird grunt. Yeah, a grunt. It kept clearing his throat all through the movie we rented. It got rather annoying. He gets these weird coughing ticks from time to time. I think all kids do, I used to pop the corners of my mouth to the point of causing insanity in my Dad. It totally freaked him out, lol. Anyway, I figured he was probably coming down with a cold. Put him to bed early... lots of fluids... yada yada yada. The usual Mom things.

Saturday it was a sore throat and head ache and stomach ache. I know what those symptoms mean... strep throat. But, hey, I don't keep throat cultures for strep testing at home, so I could have been wrong. Since it was really only the first day of being sick, he spent the day lounging on the couch and resting.

Sunday he woke up in worse condition so into the local urgent care center we went. Do you guys have these near you? They are wonderful places!! Basically it is an emergency room without the hospital and long waits. Some of them have x-ray machines even. It is a place to go when your doctor's office is closed and you need to be seen but don't need to go to the er. Anyhoo... man did I get a scolding when I was there. The nurse took Jacob's temp and it was 102. She asked when the last time he had something for his fever and I said before bed. She told me there was "no need to withhold his meds to take him to the doctors".... excuse me? I was not withholding his meds! Grrr... they did the throat culture and the rapid test was negative. The doctor told me the rapid test only tests for strep 'a' and that she was confident it is probably one of the other 5 or so kinds of strep. She sent us off with a script for Zithromax (he is allergic to amoxicillian and duricef) and she said they would call on Wednesday with the results of the 2nd culture (the one they send away when the rapid one is negative).

Well here it is Tuesday... Jacob is miserable. Three days (of a very very strong antibiotic) and he isn't any better. He is still running a fever, his stomach is hurting, his throat is killing and to top it off.... yesterday afternoon... Lauren suddenly says he isn't feeling good. Her temp? 100. I am calling the pediatrician's office as soon as it opens this morning and both these kids are getting their bums in to be checked out.

As if that wasn't enough... Andrew pulled a I-have-a-stomach-ache on the school nurse yesterday so he 1)didn't have to deal with a boy that was getting him in trouble and 2)be home to hang out with Jacob. I ended up having to pick him up. It was quite amazing to watch. He came home all down and sullen. And miraculously at 3:00 (just about the time school let out) he was feeling all better and wanted to call friends and play on the computer. Sneaky little bas... lol. That won't happen again today! I informed him that I will no longer pick him up unless there is actual puke coming out of him or he has an honest to goodness fever. We don't stay home around here because you don't like the way someone treats you. I never got to stay home and I was tortured by bullies for years. Seriously, years.

The upside to all this illness? I have gotten to sit down and work on my February Lady sweater!! It is almost done. Body is complete and one sleeve is about a 1/3 of the way done. I am thinking another 2 days and it'll be ready to block. Hey, I gotta question... how do you block something and get the lace to open up but not change the size of it? I am worried about blocking and the sweater being too big. It fits just right as it is.

I am off to change sheets, sanitize door knobs, clean bathrooms, and otherwise save the house the forces of evil germs. LOL... you know, "germ fighting Momma" was not the superhero title I had in mind when I got my necklace a few weeks ago.

2 comments:

Pretty Things said...

Zack has been pulling the nurse's office thing, too, to avoid stress. Sigh.

Anonymous said...

Hey Kerry
Sorry to hear the kids are sick. I hope Lauren's alright and that no one else gets it. :-(