Down with the sickness...

I've been stuck on this horrendous merry go round since the beginning of February. 
My family cannot stay well. 

I'm a big handwasher.  I take vitamins.  I drink OJ.  I have made a point of getting my flu shot ever since the two years in a row I tried to skip getting one and ended up suffering horribly for it.  My husband and I both got our Tdaps updated after seeing several horrifying videos of children with "whooping cough" on our local news.  We generally try to avoid being around sick people if we can help it and neither of us are generally unhealthy people to begin with. 

So then WHY can't we all just stay well?

Unfortunately, I started it.  I caught strep which had been going around and had my first fever in God knows how many years.  Interestingly enough, the 1-2 hours that I was fighting off the fever was the only time I actually felt bad throughout the entire course of it.  And that 1-2 hours fortunately occurred while The Incredible Hulk was still at daycare.  Then again, my New Mom Lesson for February has been "You don't get to be sick.  Everyone else can be sick, but you are the glue that holds it all together.  So suck it up."  And surprisingly, I have.

A few days later, my husband started showing the same symptoms (except WAY worse) and OF COURSE, he had it too.  We were all only well for about 12 hours when the baby started acting sick.  Really really sick.  I took him to see the pediatrician who was pretty sure it was a sinus infection.  Four days later, he wasn't better at all, was having fevers, and was crying every time he coughed.  He woke up on a Saturday morning with that tell-tale wheeze that spells RSV and I got him in to see the pediatrician about 30 minutes later.  (Actually, when I described the symptoms to the nurse, she made an appointment for later that morning but followed it up with "Get here...like, now."  And when we got there, we probably only sat in the waiting room for 5 minutes before they whisked us off to a room.)

One traumatizing (for me) nose suction and a breathing treatment later, we were on our way home.  (By the way, the "right" way to suction a nose is very scary and is not at all fun and involves restraining your child, but it does totally work.  Hopefully the therapy costs later in life won't be too expensive.)  We never had to take him to the ER, the one breathing treatment he received didn't seem to do a whole lot of good (though he did fall asleep with that nebulizer mask on his face which was the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life), and eventually he was totally better.  The surgery we've been planning since his birth had to be rescheduled, but otherwise, our lives returned to normal.

But then, the husband got sick again and seemed even worse than the first time.  So, armed with lots of cold medicine and Kleenex, he went on his business trip and I went about locking our child in the car. TIH was clearly so much better, so I was excited for my husband to return and to just return to some normalacy.  (And so I could beat Cooking Dash on my phone.)

Ha.  Normalacy.

I must have forgotten the part where my husband would spend a total of 6 hours in the most germ infested environment in existance (an airplane) so as quickly as he had recovered from his first two illnessness, he came down just as quickly with his third.  Fortunately, this too was resolved in only a few days.

So we're done?  Right?  February is almost over so everyone has to be healthy.  And healthy at the same time.  Now.

Right.

So, of course, in the first week of March, I put a healthy, sleepy baby to down for the night only to be woken up by a whimpering, feverish baby at 3:30 am. 101.7 degree fever.  Tylenol fixed it for a few hours, but he had spiked another one that morning.  I was so flabbergasted by it because he wasn't showing any symptoms outside of the fever.  But then, as the day progressed, he started showing some of the same symptoms as he did with the RSV (minus the wheezing and coughing).  The pediatrician decided it was nothing more than a cold virus (read: "There is nothing we can do for you.").  But, it was actually good because he wasn't having another RSV flare up (which can happen.)

When I got home from work the next day, he was waking up from a nap, but had one eye that wouldn't open.  At first glance, I thought he was just that tired until I noticed the outside of his eye was pink and swollen and...drippy.  (I know.  It's so gross.)  The pediatrician's office was already closed for the day, so my husband and I made a plan to get him in ASAP the next morning.  Three hours later, the baby was crying unconsolably (and his eye was clearly bothering him).  Four hours later, we were advised by the nurses' exchange to take him directly to the ER.  The ER visit was actually a pleasant visit.  I had half-heartedly tried to live tweet the whole experience, but it was all so quick and painless that there wasn't really anything to report.  After only one dose of the eye drops, the eye was already looking better.  He was still (and is still) experiencing the upper respiratory issues, but is generally his cute little self.  All of his toys have been disinfected within an inch of of their lives and there isn't a surface in my house which hasn't received the Lysol and/or Clorox treatment.

So, now that the daddy and the baby are on the mend, the natural flow of things would indicate, of course, that it is my turn to be sick.  And despite muttering my "I am not getting sick" mantra throughout the weekend, I kind of succumbed yesterday.  Which would explain this feeble attempt at a blog post that really ended up being boring and pointless, but explains why I am ready for spring to be here.

Bring it, allergy season.