Posted by
Colleen
November 9, 2009
Alright, I said I wasn’t going to post about being sick anymore, but I thought I should let you know we are alive, well and pretty much recovered from our afflictions.
The general consensus is that we all were stricken with Swine Flu. The doctor Dave saw last week told him Swine was the only kind of flu going around where we live, and our symptoms matched the diagnosis.
Wade was the last to go down, but his case was the mildest. He’s already feeling better. My theory is that he got well faster because he sleeps so much. I’m sure Dave and I would have felt better more quickly if we took three naps a day. Besides the lack of time available for sleeping during the daytime, we were up all hours of the night with two sick kids.
I learned yesterday a six month old baby from our area passed away last week after getting Swine Flu. I’m glad I didn’t read about that until Wade, who will be six months old tomorrow, was better, or I’m sure I would have completely freaked out.
Even with rest this stuff just hangs on for a long time. It left us feeling exhausted long after the fevers, sore throats and sniffles were gone.
I’m pretty sure it left a couple extra pounds around my middle too. All that laying around, and when I get sick I get hungry. Other people are always telling me, “Yeah, I was so sick, but at least I lost five pounds.” Not me. I guess I’m of the Feed a Cold school. But then I feed so fever too, so whatever. It didn’t help that there was Hall-o-ween candy hanging around.
I was supposed to go to my mommy’s group this morning, but still didn’t quite feel up to it. Some of that was the flu, and some of that was Wade waking up at 5 a.m thanks to the glorious effects of Falling Back for Daylight Savings Time last week.
Who’s time is that saving exactly?
Not mine when I go through weeks after bleary-eyed with something akin to jet lag.
I felt better later in the morning after a good strong cup of coffee and a shower, so we all ventured out of the house together for the first time in about two weeks.
We really needed to go out.
Cabin fever was about to eat us alive.
I think the flu may have fried my brain though.
I went into The Children’s Place to buy some new jeans for David. Their 2 pairs for $28 is a good deal, and I had a coupon for 20 percent off. I was congratulating myself on how thrifty I was to be getting those jeans for less than $12 each when the confused clerk interrupted my self-admiration to inform me that the coupon was no good.
Because it was for Gymboree.
Whoops.
I got the jeans anyway, and the clerk has a good story to tell everyone about the ditsy mom who can’t read.
My bruised ego was soothed by a delicious Pumpkin Spice Chiller. I usually have the Pumpkin Spice Latte, but today something cold and creamy was very appealing. And indeed it was delicious. I’m not sure you could really ever go wrong with pumpkin spice anything to be honest.
Maybe I wanted something cold because the weather was just lovely. Today and over the weekend we managed to hit 70 degrees. That’s unheard of this time of year in West Michigan. I know I’ve driven through more than one snow storm on Nov. 9th.
Speaking of driving, I hate doing it at night in the fall. Deer are on the move, and I am so worried I’ll hit one. I’ve seen several along our road. I try to stay alert, constantly scanning the woods on either side me looking for venison as I go down the road. But it’s almost impossible to see them until they’re leaping through your windshield.
David wants to know why deer don’t know to look both ways before crossing the street.
In spite of not liking to drive to at night, I went to the grocery store after dinner anyway. Thanks to DST it’s dark at 6 o’ clock now.
Anyway, I went ALONE.
No crying.
No whining.
No arguing.
No stopping to feed the baby or change a diaper.
No one putting extra things not on the list in the cart.
It was so fast. So stress-free, and so much less expensive.
Grocery shopping should always be done alone.
And now I’m completely worn out so I’m off to bed before I have a relapse.
Posted by
Colleen
November 8, 2009
Categories:
humor Tags:
swine flu
Posted by
Colleen
November 5, 2009
Well, that’s just great.
Now the baby is sick too.
It’s official.
All four of us.
Sick, sick, sick, sick!
Blah!
Posted by
Colleen
November 5, 2009
Read this at your own risk.
There are so many germs floating around my house they might just crawl right through my computer, disperse themselves across the internets and give you a virus.
A real virus.
Not an electronic one.
I’d give anything to just have computer virus right now.
Even if ate up my hard drive.
David is recovering slowly from the flu. It takes a long, long time to get over it completely. He’s still exhausted. But he hasn’t had anymore croupy episodes, thank goodness.
I took myself to Urgent Care Tuesday night. My cold that I thought was long gone turned into a sinus infection. And I also had the good fortune to get an eye infection some how.
This morning Dave went to the doctor. He also has a sinus infection. His is left over from the flu he had.
Dave and I are both on antibiotics, and David is still taking his medicine to keep his throat from swelling up again. Our kitchen counter looks like an apothecary with all the bottles of potions and boxes of pills sitting on it.
I’m sick of being sick, and I’m sick of blogging about being sick. You’re probably sick of reading about it. If any of you are still reading. I’ve probably scared everyone off with all my talk about yuckiness.
I gonna go find something else to write about now.
Posted by
Colleen
November 2, 2009
I don’t want to hear one more person tell me the flu is no big deal.
Yes, it probably won’t kill you, but it will still make you miserable and send you to the ER.
Putting you hand in a fire probably won’t kill you either, but it will hurt you and send you to the ER. So we avoid doing it right?
Well, it stands to reason we’d want to avoid the flu also.
I thought David was getting better, then he started coughing on Saturday. We put him to bed last night with Vicks on his chest, and the humidifier running with KAZ decongestant in it.
I was worried about David, and checked on him an hour later. He was laying in his bed in the fetal position moaning and coughing. We got him out of bed, and he could hardly stop coughing long enough to get a breath. He was crying too. Then he gagged himself, and his dinner made a reappearance.
When David was a year and a half he had a bad episode of croup that put him in the hospital over night. It took two or three rounds of meds through an IV, two breathing treatments and a several hours on oxygen before he was well enough to go home.
So we decided to take him to the ER last night before he got that bad again. I mean you just don’t know, and I didn’t want to wait until he was turning blue.
I suggested that Dave take him, and I stay home with Wade. That sent David into even more hysterics, because he wanted me to go. But I knew if it came to needing to hold him down while the nurse administered an IV, I couldn’t do it. The last time when he was still a toddler it took three people to hold him still. I’m not kidding when I tell you he’s freakishly strong. I really wonder sometimes if he’s from the planet Kypton.
That’s a horrible experience by the way, standing there helpless while your child fights and cries, scared to death of what the doctors and nurses are doing to him. I so feel for parents with seriously ill children who go through stuff like that on a regular basis.
So we woke Wade from a peaceful slumber and ran out the door to the ER. It was a blessing that they weren’t busy. The doctor saw him right away, and they took him for x-rays, all in less than an hour. There was a delay while we waited for the results of the x-rays, but as far as ER visits go, it was pretty speedy.
David had swelling in his throat and voice box that caused the croup. The nurse gave him some steroids that helped with the swelling. The doctor said the swelling was caused by a virus – the flu that he had.
David got upset again over taking the medicine. He was afraid it would taste bad. He wouldn’t even try it at first. The nurse tried tempting him with the promise of a Popsicle. But she didn’t know how stubborn David is. Bribery usually is wasted on him.
Now this is the same kid who today wanted to taste the homemade playdough I was making. I told him it was yucky, and he tasted it anyway. Why the playdough and not the medicine? Good grief.
Oh, and his conclusion after trying the playdough?
“Hmmm, it tastes like playdough.”
Really? Who’d of thought.
Back to last night, David kept asking to go home, and I think we finally got him to take the medicine by telling him he could go home if he did.
The medicine did taste terrible, but he got it down.
The nurse gave him a Popsicle, but he didn’t eat it. Who wants a Popsicle at 1 a.m.?
They sent us off with a prescription to fill in the morning.
We got home around 1:30, and put David back to bed. Wade who even seemed to sense that there was some excitement going on, was over-stimulated and didn’t go back to sleep until 2:30. I just laid down and closed my eyes when David crawled into bed next to me around 3.
No one got much sleep last night.
I went out this morning to fill the prescription. I was second in line at the pharmacy when they opened, and still had to wait 45 minutes for them to fill it. Does it really take that long to pour liquid in a bottle and put a label on it? Seems like it used to only take 15 or 20 minutes.
There’s a joke in there somewhere about the government taking over health care, but I’m too tired to come up with it today.
David is breathing fine now, but he’s worn out and still feels yucky.
Now, here’s the thing. The flu doesn’t kill you. The complications do. You can get pneumonia, and a myriad of other things after the flu that can kill you.
You don’t want the flu. You don’t want your kids to get the flu. Stay away from it. Wash your hands. Get the vaccine if it’s available.
The flu stinks.
(I don’t know if it was Swine or seasonal flu. David had a seasonal flu shot, but he got sick with in the 10 days that it takes for the vaccine to be fully effective. And no, he did not get the flu because he got the shot. It’s a myth that you can get the flu from the vaccine.)
Categories:
Illness Tags:
flu, Kids, sick
