This old camel’s legs are wobbling, his back is sagging and I’m not sure he can take one more straw without collapsing. It really has been a rough month of sickness through our house, coupled with long restless nights of no sleep due to erratic sleep/feeding patterns of Nat Bird. We are all stretched so thin that we might just break if something doesn’t give.
It all started a week and a half before Nat Bird was born. A Bird had this thick, gross cough that just didn’t want to go away, I was sick with a bad cold and cough and was petrified that L Bird would deliver and I would be forced out of the delivery room and not be allowed to hold Nat Bird because I was contaminated with germs. Luckily both A Bird and I recovered long enough for L Bird to have Nat Bird and for us to bring her home. Once we had all been home for a couple of days A Bird’s and my cough returned in full force. With Nat Bird being only a few days old we limited A Bird’s contact with Nat Bird, and I lathered myself with Vick’s Vaporub and pitched in as much as I could, but the bulk of newborn care fell to L Bird. So L Bird was getting little to no rest and stressed out because the ever present threat of germs in the house could get Nat Bird very sick.
That’s when the fever hit. A Bird was not acting like herself and was very sleepy and not eating, so we checked her temperature and sure enough she has spiked a fever of 104 F, so we instantly started our regimen of children’s Tylenol and Motrin while constantly bribing her with Ginger Ale, Gatorade, and popsicles to take the medicine. So there were a few meltdowns and blow ups over medicine and she threw up an entire dose of medicine because she had gotten herself so worked up but then she finally took it. This went on for two days, then we thought her fever had finally broke. She was acting more like her normal self and had no fever throughout the day, it was AWESOME, until 5 pm when the doctor’s office had closed then her temp spiked again to 103 F. So when I got home from work I took her into urgent care where they promptly diagnosed her with strep throat. Because I was in close contact with her and we had a one week old at home the doctor was nice enough to check me too and said that I could possibly have it too. Antibiotics were started, which was about as much fun as the other medicine. For 10 days we tried to coerce, bribe, beg and plead for her to take a “bubble gum” flavored antibiotic and after much, much, much more stress than it should have been she took it all.
Great, no more fever, no more strep throat and A Bird is back to school. Then BANG another straw drops on the camel like a two ton acme weight you see in the cartoons. Guess who has strep throat now, L Bird. She had been running on low energy keeping us all together and trying to get us all healthy and she get its. That was a week ago, she has taken her 5 days of ZPAK and seems to feel better. Things were going good this past week and throughout the weekend until round 3 when we got hit with an entire straw bale.
A Bird came down with another fever on Monday. She was burning up, lethargic, and hadn’t really eaten much of anything all day yesterday before we could get her to the doctor. She asked for a few goldfish crackers for the ride to the doctor’s office, so I thought that was a good sign. She munched on goldfish and stared glassy eyed out the window as we made it to the hospital. We had just gotten out of the car when she threw up all of the crackers she ate in the parking lot. I felt so bad for her and it must have looked horrible. There we are standing out in the freezing weather as she is bent over puking while I am rubbing her little back and holding her hair. I get her cleaned up when she is finished and we got right into to see the doctor. After he checked her all over, he is leaning towards strep throat AGAIN, with a cold or a “something viral” on top of it. He took a throat culture and said we would know by today if she had strep. He sent us on our way with antibiotics to get us started last night, and he would call in a prescription today if she needed it. We are patiently waiting with fingers, toes, legs, eyes and whatever else will cross that she doesn’t strep again so we don’t have 10 days of medicine fighting coming, because honestly I don’t think I have it in me.
So that’s where we are, so I apologize to anyone that has called the house to see how we are doing. I know L Bird and I haven’t been the friendliest on the phone. We are physically and emotionally spent. I know in the big picture all this sickness is small potatoes and it will pass. I know things could be a lot worse as far as sickness and disease, it is just strep throat not something worse or life changing. I am eternally grateful that these are small things and we will get through them, but right now all I see is a giant pile of straw around me.
Here’s to a getting it out of the way now and hopefully a healthier 2013.
It all started a week and a half before Nat Bird was born. A Bird had this thick, gross cough that just didn’t want to go away, I was sick with a bad cold and cough and was petrified that L Bird would deliver and I would be forced out of the delivery room and not be allowed to hold Nat Bird because I was contaminated with germs. Luckily both A Bird and I recovered long enough for L Bird to have Nat Bird and for us to bring her home. Once we had all been home for a couple of days A Bird’s and my cough returned in full force. With Nat Bird being only a few days old we limited A Bird’s contact with Nat Bird, and I lathered myself with Vick’s Vaporub and pitched in as much as I could, but the bulk of newborn care fell to L Bird. So L Bird was getting little to no rest and stressed out because the ever present threat of germs in the house could get Nat Bird very sick.
That’s when the fever hit. A Bird was not acting like herself and was very sleepy and not eating, so we checked her temperature and sure enough she has spiked a fever of 104 F, so we instantly started our regimen of children’s Tylenol and Motrin while constantly bribing her with Ginger Ale, Gatorade, and popsicles to take the medicine. So there were a few meltdowns and blow ups over medicine and she threw up an entire dose of medicine because she had gotten herself so worked up but then she finally took it. This went on for two days, then we thought her fever had finally broke. She was acting more like her normal self and had no fever throughout the day, it was AWESOME, until 5 pm when the doctor’s office had closed then her temp spiked again to 103 F. So when I got home from work I took her into urgent care where they promptly diagnosed her with strep throat. Because I was in close contact with her and we had a one week old at home the doctor was nice enough to check me too and said that I could possibly have it too. Antibiotics were started, which was about as much fun as the other medicine. For 10 days we tried to coerce, bribe, beg and plead for her to take a “bubble gum” flavored antibiotic and after much, much, much more stress than it should have been she took it all.
Great, no more fever, no more strep throat and A Bird is back to school. Then BANG another straw drops on the camel like a two ton acme weight you see in the cartoons. Guess who has strep throat now, L Bird. She had been running on low energy keeping us all together and trying to get us all healthy and she get its. That was a week ago, she has taken her 5 days of ZPAK and seems to feel better. Things were going good this past week and throughout the weekend until round 3 when we got hit with an entire straw bale.
A Bird came down with another fever on Monday. She was burning up, lethargic, and hadn’t really eaten much of anything all day yesterday before we could get her to the doctor. She asked for a few goldfish crackers for the ride to the doctor’s office, so I thought that was a good sign. She munched on goldfish and stared glassy eyed out the window as we made it to the hospital. We had just gotten out of the car when she threw up all of the crackers she ate in the parking lot. I felt so bad for her and it must have looked horrible. There we are standing out in the freezing weather as she is bent over puking while I am rubbing her little back and holding her hair. I get her cleaned up when she is finished and we got right into to see the doctor. After he checked her all over, he is leaning towards strep throat AGAIN, with a cold or a “something viral” on top of it. He took a throat culture and said we would know by today if she had strep. He sent us on our way with antibiotics to get us started last night, and he would call in a prescription today if she needed it. We are patiently waiting with fingers, toes, legs, eyes and whatever else will cross that she doesn’t strep again so we don’t have 10 days of medicine fighting coming, because honestly I don’t think I have it in me.
So that’s where we are, so I apologize to anyone that has called the house to see how we are doing. I know L Bird and I haven’t been the friendliest on the phone. We are physically and emotionally spent. I know in the big picture all this sickness is small potatoes and it will pass. I know things could be a lot worse as far as sickness and disease, it is just strep throat not something worse or life changing. I am eternally grateful that these are small things and we will get through them, but right now all I see is a giant pile of straw around me.
Here’s to a getting it out of the way now and hopefully a healthier 2013.
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