Sickos

With a few exceptions, Norah and Lou have done a pretty good job of keeping themselves healthy over the years.  Sure, Lou still gets the occasional ear infection, but for the most part they seem to have relatively decent immune systems.  A few weeks ago I was at work and got a call that Louie was having a hard day and kept trying to sleep on the circle time rug, so they took him to the nurse and took his temperature.  It was 102 and so they called me to come and get him.  I was all the way downtown at my office (a good 25 minutes away even with no traffic), so I sent Bubby to rescue him. About five minutes later the school called me back and said something to the effect of, "he seems really sick and so we took his temp again and now it's 104.3.  We don't want to alarm you."  Thanks, folks.

Bubby picked him up and got some Motrin in him and then I met her at home.  Louie was really lethargic and out of it and even with medication I couldn't get his fever to come down more than about a degree so to the pediatrician we went.  He was thrilled.

He had no other symptoms and because the fever was so high and came on so quick they did a simple blood panel just to rule out anything serious (like meningitis).  We had to wait at the office for the results.  He was too sick even to eat the purple lollipop.

It only took about 15 minutes to get the results (obviously negative), but he was in bad shape.  We got the diagnosis of "it's just a virus" and off we went.

He was exhausted but too uncomfortable to sleep so we did a cool bath, cool washcloths, popsicles, and a lot of Thomas the Train in my bed on the ipad.

Norah was fine when she got home from school but by about three hours later she was hot and grouchy and by the middle of the night she was down too.

For the next four days Louie ran a crazy high fever.  It would come down a bit with medication but then creep right back up.  Norah ran hot as well, but not nearly as high.  I had to cancel a work trip and we pretty much quarantined ourselves.

Norah ended up missing two days of kindergarten, which was devastating to her.  I went to school and got all of her assignments, which softened the blow somewhat.  The first day of sick kids is kind of sweet.  They are cuddly and sleep a lot and want to be cuddled a lot.  Day 2 to 5 is pretty miserable. They are grumpy and don't sleep much, whine a lot and complain that the popsicles aren't the right flavor.  We were all really stir-crazy but they were contagious and acting like giant a-holes, so we were stuck at home.

Day 6 the fevers started to wane and were replaced with gross coughs and runny noses.  Lou's ears were obviously bothering him so we went back to the doctor and they both got antibiotics for secondary sinus infections and an ear infection for Louie.  Norah did not have school that Monday because it was a teacher in-service day, so at least it was already a day off.

She got cleared to go back to school on Tuesday (thank God), but Lou was still stuck with me because of the day care 24 hour without fever medication rule.  We had a nice day together that included him asking for underpants and then promptly peeing in them 15 seconds later.

We also ventured out of the house for a little Target popcorn and car shopping.

The day he got back to school there was a notice for a hand, foot, and mouth outbreak posted in his classroom but we seemed to escape that since he had been out for almost a week.  So, at least there's that.

I was out of town overnight for work last week and when I got back long after bedtime the next night, I found a Norah in my bed waiting for me because she "had a stomachache and needed to sleep with me."  BVZ high-tailed it upstairs to the spare bedroom and all was well until about 1:00 am when Norah woke me up out of a dead sleep and proceeded to barf all over herself, all over me, all over my bed, all over my bedroom rug, and all over the hallway tile.  Think 5 or 6 exorcist style barfs.  I don't know if it was residual sick from the previous week, some exposure to gluten, an upset stomach from the antibiotic, or just something unidentifiable.  Whatever the case may be it was gross.

It's a good thing they are cute.