It’s pretty widely known and accepted that when your kids go to daycare/pre-school, they’re going to constantly be coming home with new and exciting illnesses… Even better they’re going to share with you! Here’s a little fun we had in September.
Our kids’ pre-school has certain times when a “new round” of students enters the school and also many kids shift/graduate from one class to the next. Right after Labor Day is one of those times. Wouldn’t you know it… Thomas got a fever caused by a virus. He was really out of it for about 3 days (Sep 5-7 or so). He ate very little, drank lots of fluids, and pretty much stayed home and watched TV or slept for the entire time. I was working from home so I was also taking care of Thomas. He also decided to run a fever around 102 or so (the danger zone for our kids). He got better by the weekend…
Then that Saturday (Sept 
we had the twice yearly gigantic yard sale in our community. I sold about $250 worth of junk so I was pretty happy about that. However, that evening I started to have a pretty high fever (102 or so), and then the rest of the family started to show signs of illness as well. Alice got a fever (100+), Lauren and Nicholas also started to show signs… fever and runny noses, etc. We were now all sick — except for Thomas.
I was probably the sickest. I had not only a high fever, but also a massive headache. So massive that I thought it was probably migraines or maybe something worse. Over the course of my sickness (Sept 8-13) I visited my doctor, the hospital emergency room, slept a ton, drank lots of fluids (or so I thought), and generally felt miserable. At the ER, by the way, they did blood tests, gave me fluids, a head CT, and a strep test — all came back negative. The day after, we went to see our doctor and Alice got a strep test – which came back positive. In hindsight, we believe it was primarily strep which took us all out, and my headaches were a combo of the strep + dehydration.
Other fun facts… During my horrible sickness, I figured I’d be able to lay in bed and do some email or something simple — wrong! I was so out of it, I could barely stay awake. The headaches were the worst — and none of the OTC pain relievers seemed to help much (thus the trip to the ER). Did I mention that I lost about 10 pounds too!?!?
But it wasn’t all me either. Alice was sick too… and poor dear, she had to help take care of the rest of us because she was the “least sick”.
Fortunately, we had help… My mom and dad, Kristin, and others were around to help us out. Thank goodness we all live in the same general area. While my mom didn’t get sick afterwards, Kristin did… the chain continues!
