Breaking News

Okay, it's not really anything that important, or really interesting, I haven't caught up with my summer and I wanted to post about something current, so I am. I should warn you this is going to be long, but I wanted to document it, and this isn't something I would write about in a month when I am finally getting around to catching up to now, so continue reading or don't.

As everyone knows right now we are in the middle of the swine flu epidemic. Our house has not been spared. About a month ago we all went through a 24 hour stomach bug. Now, 24 hour bugs are the kind I like (if you have to get sick) because they are quick and you are done. ONLY we have a family of 6 so our 24 hour bug lasted a week or so. So a nice long week of tons of blechy laundry and cleaning bathrooms round the clock. I also got sick and luckily had some great friends and visiting teachers who brought dinner and went to the store for me that day.

Then a few nice weeks of nothing (oh I miss those days) Then 3 Saturdays ago, Allan had a fever and wasn't feeling too well. There was a football game and it wasn't enough to keep him home, but he had me drive most of the way to Utah which never happens. (It was only most of the way because Allan can't be a passenger, he closes his eyes to rest and every small movement he thinks we are going off of the road.) He also felt good enough to go swimming and play "pickle-ball" with his brother and neice and nephews. I always say when Allan is sick he is very selective about the things he can and can't do!

So then later that week Natalie woke up in the middle of the night with a high fever. We gave her medicine and she seemed better during the day but sure enough the next night, high fever. So this trend continued and she never really had any other symptoms so I admittedly ignored it, partly because her cousin Matt had had the same thing and gone in and had a negative flu test.

So then on Friday Ally stayed home from school because she said her head hurt and pretty soon she had a fever. She rested most of the day, but I made her go to her piano lesson because her teacher was having surgery and wouldn't be doing lessons for a couple of weeks. Hailey came home from school and had gone on a field trip that day and was complaining that her legs hurt and I thought it was just from walking so much and she also went to her piano lesson. By five o'clock, they were both running fevers above 104 degrees, so I called the doctor. They didn't have any appointments that night, so they scheduled me for Saturday morning.

They both tested positive for flu and the doctor prescribed Tami-flu. They assume that this was the swine flu because something like 90% of all flu cases that were being tested were H1N1 and the test is expensive and takes a long time so they stopped doing it. I assume Natalie also was sick with the flu, but it had been several days so too late for Tami-flu so I never took her in. This was also their cousin's baptism day so much to their sadness, I ended up going to the baptism alone while Allan stayed home with sick kiddos.

Then on Tuesday night, as Hailey and Ally and Natalie were all starting to feel better, Lilly started with the fever and I called and got an appointment for her for Wednesday morning. The doctor assumed she had the flu because of her symptoms and the girls at home with the flu and put her on Tami-flu.

Just a side note here, I got several calls about people worried about me getting the flu because of all of the complications of being pregnant, I haven't been sick at all which is fabulous because I am the only one who can keep our house running somewhat smoothly.

So Thursday night Hailey wakes up in the middle of the night complaining about her ear. In the morning it was still bothering her, but I looked at it and didn't see much wrong so I asked her if she wanted to go to school and she did. Well, by 9:30 I got a call from the school from her saying her ear hurt and that she wanted to come home. So I called the doctor, and back we went for the third time in a week. He confirmed her ear infection, gave her some medicine, and said as long as she was up fo it she could go back to school because it wasn't contagious. Well, by the time we were done at the doctor and getting medicine and eating lunch it was after 1 and I figured it was pointless to send her back either way. This weekend when asked she would tell me her ear still hurt but I just kept on giving her the medicine and hoping it would get better.

So last night she was complaining about it a bit after school, she had the lesson for FHE and I was helping her get it together and she seemed okay. By the time we finished dinner and it was time for her lesson she was in too much pain to give it, so she sat by me while I did it. After FHE we sent her off to bed. By 9:30 she was crying in her bed, "Owie, owie, owie, owie, owie." I asked Allan if she was crying and he said he had heard her once before but she was saying, "Mommy" so he was waiting for me to go. She was saying, "owie" not "mommy" for the record, but I went in to check on her. This continued ALL night long. She would sleep for a short while maybe 20 minutes or so and then the crying would start again.

A little after midnight, she went to the bathroom and then came into our room and I told her Daddy had to rest for work tomorrow, but if she could be quiet she could come in and lay down with us. By about 1:30 she was crying again and we told her she had to be quiet or go out to the couch or back to her bed. She continued to cry louder and I tried to move her out of our bed but of course she fought me, then Allan got upset and carried her out of the bedroom and they had a little power struggle for a minute and she ended up locked outside our bedroom door screaming, so I told her I would go and lay down with her in her bed.

She slept off and on the rest of the night waking up very regularly crying about the pain. During the night (about 2:30) I heard Natalie up and discovered she had had an accident, so I changed her bedding and her pajamas and tried going back to my bedroom and Natalie followed within 5 minutes, and about 15 minutes later Hailey was crying again so I went back up to her bed leaving Natalie in mine. A few minutes later Natalie wandered back in and wanted to sleep with me, so all three of us were in a twin size top bunk of the bed. The crying continued, "owie, owie, owie, owie, owie." The rest of the night and into the morning.

In the morning I called the doctor again and left a message with the nurse to call me. After I called the nurse, Hailey had some discharge from her ear, I figured her ear drum had finally ruptured, the doctor had said on Friday it was close and would probably do that. The nurse called and made her an appointment at noon. All morning, "owie, owie, owie, owie, owie." We took her to the doctor, got her new medicine and new ear drops. All afternoon, "owie, owie, owie, owie, owie," okay it's only 3:00 but it hasn't stopped yet.

I am working on very little sleep and am really getting tired and impatient. Everytime she cries, starting last night, it starts out pretty quiet and gets louder until she either gets a response from me or she comes to me and tells me her ear hurts. I have tried to explain that I have done EVERYTHING I can possibly do for her, she has been on Tylenol and Motrin basically non-stop since Friday morning, and what she really needs to do is try to rest. I really hope she gets better soon and that this is the end of the sickness at our house because I don't know how much more I can take. Really my one saving grace is that I haven't gotten sick, and well, also that I have had some crafts to do, that I bought on that trip to Utah when Allan started all of this, to keep me busy. Wish me luck and pray that it all ends soon!