And every time I say that I knock on wood, or whatever equivalent that's nearby that I can find.
Because when I say this household had the flu, I actually mean just Lindsey. At least to-date. And she had it rough. She missed four days of school, and not four days in a row, she missed a Thursday/Friday and the following Monday/Tuesday, so she was out cold for six full days.
She definitely gave us a scare when at first we thought she'd gotten off lightly. She had two days of 100.8 temps, then on Saturday she awoke and the fever had miraculously gone away! Wow, she's gotten off light, we thought, after hearing the nightmare stories of other children. Little did we know.
Sunday morning she woke up screaming and writhing like someone was killing her. She said her ears hurt soooooo bad, and she was running a low-grade fever. Luckily the Minute Clinic at Target opens up at 9:00, and she and I were there bright and early. Turns out she had a double ear infection. The PA took one look in her one ear, looked slightly startled and asked me, "How long has she been complaining of ear pain?" I said, "About 24 hours." He said, "Well, this ear is bright red and bulging, it looks extremely painful." The other one was infected too, so he wrote a prescription for antibiotics and we got the prescription filled there. The bottle was about the size of a pint of vodka.
We started her on antibiotics when we got home and she still had a low grade fever. We thought the fever was related to the ear infection and didn't think much of it. She slept poorly that night, as she was up many times coughing, and Monday morning she still had a fever so we kept her home.
By Monday afternoon Wayne called me at work and said, "I'm really worried about her, she's slept all afternoon; even when she's up she's lethargic and she's barely eating." Being the non-alarmist that I am, I thought, well, it's the flu, you sleep a lot. Then he called back later and said, "She won't really wake up when I try to wake her and her eyes are glazed over." Okay, now I'm concerned. I called the pediatrician's helpline and was the 20th caller in queue. I've never been the 20th -- I don't even think I've been the 10th. I finally got a live person 30 minutes later, and I described the symptoms and what was going on and she said to take her to the ER.
So that's where we went, as soon as I got home from work. That was about the longest commute home that I've ever had, and I think I got it down to 15 minutes that day.
Long story short, after a long wait at the ER, we get seen and get told that she's just got the flu, and yes, this year it's really this bad. No pneumonia, no secondary infection, she's processing oxygen well, and she's not even the sickest kid they've seen. Be prepared to be home with her all week, it takes a while, they said.
Later on I started to feel somewhat foolish for having brought her in. Then a friend of mine told me about someone she knew whose son spiked a 105 fever after being sick for days. They brought him to the ER, only to be told to take him home with several strategies for bringing his fever down. They called the ER back twice when the techniques that they'd told them to try didn't succeed in dropping his fever, and five hours later he was dead. Gone. So I don't feel bad for having brought her in. If it had indeed turned out to be something serious, I would've kicked myself forever for not having gotten her checked out earlier.
As it was, by the next morning her fever had broken and she was making up for the lack of energy she'd had the prior six days. She made Halloween costumes for her stuffed animals, then she painted with her easel and paints. Then she did her writing homework with me and danced around the house. She and I decided to celebrate her good health by going to a local restaurant for lunch. And by the following day, Wednesday, she was back at school.
As I mentioned earlier, no one else in the house is sick...yet. Marissa had a cold several weeks ago that she is still coughing from, and I had a sinus infection which is resulting in a lingering cough as it breaks up. We make a snazzy duo. But all in all, we're very fortunate.
I am hoping that in a day or two I am not regretting these words. Where's the nearest piece of wood again?
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