H1N1...

Last weekend, I got really sick suddenly on Friday night. Fever, cough, headache, etc. But my cough made me think it was more like bronchitis than anything else. I called the doctor who was on-call for our office. He called in a prescription for me.

Saturday night, I was getting worse and was also having trouble breathing. I called the doctor back again and this time he said to go in to the emergency room, so we went in. Hubby took me in and my mom stayed with the kiddos.

They did numerous tests (I don't quite remember it all because they gave me a dose of Tylenol - yeah, I am super sensitive to medication) but I do remember the H1N1 test. Ouch and yuck! The test came back negative. The doctor said that the test has a high false negative rate (about 40% of all negative test results are false) and that I had the classic symptoms of the H1N1 flu, so he told me to discontinue the medicine prescribed the previous day and to take the Tamiflu he prescribed instead. So, I did and I'm still not feeling 100% but I am definitely feeling much better than I was.

Fast forward to last Monday night. Boy B started having the same symptoms. We decided that we would keep him home from school the next day. We also made him a doctor's appointment because he ends up with severe respiratory infections and this was the second time this school year that he has had something like this. His ped tested him for H1N1 and sure enough, it was positive. Our ped gave him a prescription for a steroid to help his lungs but no Tamiflu because its not really effective in children.

Boy B started to get over it (to the extent that last night, he came up to me and said, "Mom, I think I lost the flu.") and then by Wednesday, Boy A started showing signs and symptoms as well. So, home he stayed from school for the rest of the week as well. Both are on the mend now.

Another fast forward to Sunday morning. Boy C woke up at 2am and Boy A woke up around 3am. I had my route to do and Hubby hadn't been asleep for very long, so I decided to have the boys go with me. Boys A and B like to go along and do the actual running of the papers if they are up in time for it (not very often are they up at that hour though). But I figured that on Sunday morning, Boys A and C could ride along with me. That way, they would both be supervised and Hubby could continue to sleep. We got home afterwards and Boy C slept from 7am until 9am. Not a very long nap considering he was up most of the night.

All of the kids laid down for naps in the afternoon (Boys A and B are getting over being ill, Girlie is just starting to show signs of it and Boy C appears to have scathed by untouched by it all). Hubby was in charge of naps and he let them all fall asleep late and therefore, sleep late. I ended up waking them all up at 5:00pm. Boy A came down to the family room and ended up falling back asleep on the floor. Boy B stayed awake coloring and Girlie watched a movie. Boy C went to the living room and laid down on the floor up there and fell asleep. It was the same thing that Boy A did so I figured it was related to their non-sleep the night before.

Next thing I know, Hubby is freaking out that and yelling that Boy C is seizing. He rushes up the stairs and before I can tell him not to, he has Boy C in his arms. I take Boy C from him, bring him down to the family room and tell Hubby to call the doctor's office, or rather, the nurse line that answers for them. He is placed on hold immediately - it doesn't even go to a person before it goes to hold. So Hubby is on hold on the phone and I'm sitting with Boy C and making sure he is on his side while he seizes, etc. Meanwhile, our other kids are gathered around, worried about their baby brother.

I tell Hubby that the nurse line is taking too long and tell him to call the hospital ER instead. He calls them and we switch places. I talk to the registrar (though I wish I would have talked to the triage nurse instead) and she said in a very ho-hum way "if you want to bring him in, go ahead" (more on her later, ugh!)

Hubby tells Boy A to go get Boy C some clothes (he had taken his nap in just a diaper) so Boy A goes and gets some footed sleeper jammies for Boy C and we dress him once he stops seizing. At this point, Boy C is back to newborn-like muscle control. His head is too heavy for his body, he is just limp, and unable to help dress himself or even sit up.

Once dressed, I head out the door with him and we go straight to the ER. When I get there, the lovely and caring registrar is sitting at the desk. "I can't help you right now," she informs me, "I'm stuck on something." She was on the phone about a patient, I could tell and I wasn't sure what else to do, so I stepped back to allow for a bit of privacy (you know, HIPPA and all) until one of the other registrars calls to me and has me come back. We go back and I explain what we are there for. The triage nurse (a really wonderful male nurse with fabulous patient care!) comes up before we even have the papers signed and asks me if this is the child with the seizure. I tell him it is and he ushers me back to the triage room. He takes a quick set of vitals (including a temp of 102.6) and health history and then checks on room availability. He says that if we wait for the paperwork and armband to catch up with us and we walk real slow, we could time it just right, because the room was just being cleaned. He checks on the paperwork and the armband and has us wait in the triage room.

We get Boy C's sheet of stickies (the labels that they use on anything that pertains to his visit tonight) and head off to the room, without the paperwork or the armband. We go in and get situated and the nurse comes in and talks with me and does a quick check of the boy. She asks if I had given him anything for his temp and I said no, because he hadn't had a temp all day and other than the odd sleeping hours, he was acting just fine all day, right up to the point when he started to seize. She said that most likely he had been fine and then spiked a sudden fever which caused the seizure. Okay, cool, I can handle that. Febrile seizure, no big deal. But then they want to know why he had a sudden spike of fever and they decide to test for the H1N1 flu of course. Hubby comes in and joins us at some point during this, but I can't remember when exactly. Anyhow, the nurse goes to get the swabs and comes back with an assistant to help hold Boy C down so she can do the test. It's a quick process which is good because it is one of the most unpleasant experiences ever. Anytime someone has to forcibly stick something up your nose is the makings of a bad day (or night) in my opinion.

She takes the test out and lets us know that they will also do an x-ray to rule out pneumonia, which I guess is a fairly common side effect of H1N1. Then the doctor comes in and talks to me and tells me what they are going to do (or have already done) and then he's gone. I think it was at that point, that registrar came in and finally gave us Boy C's armband. She was totally rude and I'm glad that the whole experience was not based on just her manner. (I also didn't find out until later on when we were leaving that when Hubby got there, the good registrar had caught him and had him sign papers for consent to treat, etc.)

So we go to x-ray and a tech and I hold Boy C in position for one straight-on chest x-ray and one side-view chest x-ray. I am not a big fan of x-rays in general. My father-in-law is a radiologist and he can back me on this one. But when the benefit outweighs the risk, it's worth it.

We get back to the room and the doctor comes back in and informs us the test is positive, and that he will be starting Boy C on Tamiflu to treat it and is ready to head out the door. But I stop him and question his use of Tamiflu. He said that because of Boy C's seizure and the severity of his symptom onset, it was best in his opinion to prescribe the medicine. He also said that if the symptoms had not been so severe and so quickly onset, he wouldn't prescribe it. I accepted that as a good response. I don't like doctors to just throw a prescription at a set of symptoms and even when given prescriptions, we are very cautious about giving them.

By the time we get home, Boy C is almost back to himself. He is still acting very much like a baby and would just lay wherever he was placed. Oh - and one other odd thing that happened while we were at the hospital...it seemed like Boy C was trying to nurse. I was holding him and he started to do the rooting motions and when he was close, he opened his mouth and started licking my shirt. I kept repositioning him but he kept trying it, so I ended up laying him down and just rubbing his tummy or forehead or his arm instead. It was so odd - he's 24 1/2 months old and hasn't nursed since he was about 10 months old. I don't know what prompted that tonight, but Hubby and I both found it incredibly odd and plan to ask his ped about it later on.

So that was our experience this past week. Hoping that Boy C gets over it all fairly quickly and that Girlie will get it and get it over with as well so that we can all get back to normal again. Ahhhhhh!

Wonderful Day!

I had the most wonderful day today! I had to go into the school today to drop off some snacks for Boy B's Kindergarten class. I had picked up some graham crackers, a couple of jugs of apple juice and some dixie cups for the kids. I wasn't sure what "bringing snack" meant, but figured too much was better than not enough - and if there is extra, they just keep it for later use.

Anyhow, that was the main purpose of my visit. I go in, check in with the monitor, get my visitor badge and head towards Boy B's classroom. Before I get too far, I decide to quickly swing by Boy B's homeroom class to talk to his teacher about our homework dilemma. We are constantly getting homework sent home, Boy A does it, then we send it to school the next day, yet it somehow keeps coming home in his backpack. So, my concern was that the homework was not getting turned in. When I would ask Boy A about it, he would either say he did turn it in or else he forgot to turn it in. Both answers are usually given moments apart, so I felt that I should talk to his teacher about this.

I go in to talk to her and while she is not the teacher that I needed to talk to about this particular situation. This problem kept cropping up involving his math homework, but his homeroom teacher teaches his language arts, not his math or unit studies teacher.

We discuss his language arts progress and overall behaviors in the classroom and she reports to me that he is doing well and is showing improvement over his behavior from the beginning of the year, and we also discussed how the spelling tests are set up. She is getting her system established and she is doing well with it. So, report from Mrs. R went well!

Then I head over to talk to Mrs. Z about Boy A's math homework. I go in and introduce myself and tell her that I would like to talk to her about Boy A's math. She gets excited and says that she is so happy that I am there and then closes the door. We sit down and she says that she is so shocked over Boy A's test score. (inward grown on my part) She goes on to say that she was sure he was going to have problems with his test, since he had been absent last week and missed a lot of the instruction time and then the review and extra practice. She pulls out his test and shows me that he only missed two problems. She said that since he had been gone, she thought she would have to reteach him the material and she didn't. He felt confident that he could do the work and so she let him take the test, against her better judgment and he did extremely well. She said that he has a math mind.

I explained our issue with homework and how it comes back. She explained that her process was to have the kids lay their work out in the top corner, and she walks around the room and spot checks the homework to make sure that its complete and checks a couple of key problems. She doesn't actually sit down and grade each assignment. So, that is why Boy A often brings the homework back home. She said he has never not had his homework when he should have it.

What an encouraging visit I had with her. We talked at great length, actually taking up most of her hour-long plan period. It was wonderful! She said that I was easy to talk to (and I totally felt the same way about her) and that she really enjoyed our talk.

How wonderful to have those conversations with two of his teachers. I have to talk to a third teacher tomorrow yet and I'll let you know how that one goes.

I then went on to Boy B's classroom and dropped off the treats. The teacher, Ms. W, seemed to really appreciate the juice and cups as well. I'm going to try to remember to take treats in once a month at least.

Sick, sick, sick

It seems like it has been so long since we have not had a sick child in the house, but really, its only been two weeks. Two weeks today, actually. Finally we are all on the mend!

Boy B (who is 5) got sick two weeks ago today with a bad cough, fever and just acted lethargic. Wouldn't eat, wouldn't drink, wouldn't move. He was miserable (adorable but miserable). His first soccer practice/game of the season was the next day and I knew he wasn't up to playing, but thought maybe he'd want to go along just to watch and at least meet the other kids on the team.

His response? "No, I don't want to. What if I cough on them and I get them sick?" This was said in a raspy, froggy-sounding voice. My heart just melted.

So, the kiddos stayed home with Grandma while Hubby and I went off to the game. Hubby is the head coach and Hubby's friend, C, is the assistant coach. It's kind of backwards, considering the fact that C is a huge soccer fan and LOVES to play and watch, and as it turns out, coach.

Then, that Monday, Boy B missed school, went to the doctor's office and we were told that he has para influenza. They did a quick strep test and a cultured test. Hubby and I thought it sounded like he had strep, but the quick strep came back negative.

We got a call the next day. The cultured strep test was positive, and where would we like the prescription called in to? So, we start antibiotics.

Wednesday, he still has a fever, Thursday morning it FINALLY breaks. Looking good to be back at school on Friday. I call his school and request his homework. Boy A brings it home with him after school.

Thursday night. Kitchen table. Two boys sitting down to do homework. Boy A, who is 8 and in 3rd grade with 2 pages of homework. Boy B, who is 5 and in kindergarten with 8 pages of homework (front AND back). Math problem: which child finishes first?

Answer: They finish at the same time.

It takes Boy A FOREVER to do his homework. He's a smart kid, he just does not like to sit down and focus on one subject long enough to finish a page of homework. Meanwhile, Boy B sits there, diligently and methodically, going through his homework one page at a time, stopping only to ask me to read him the directions. I don't understand this.

Actually, I think I do. We had discussed quite a while ago about homeschooling the kids. At the last minute, we enrolled Boy A in Kindergarten and he's been in public school since. His best year was first grade. His teacher was fabulous, she kept on him, it was wonderful! Kindergarten was good, but he slid back a lot in what he could do, second grade was horrible. Absolutely horrible. For him and for our family. It came out everywhere. Then we moved. That helped matters quite a bit, because we were in a different school.

This year, I don't know. I'm not even sure what to think just yet. Boy B does FABULOUS in school. I told Hubby years ago, when Boy A was about 5 and Boy B was almost 3, that I was pretty sure, based on their personalities at that time, that Boy A should definitely be homeschooled and that Boy B would probably do well in a regular classroom. Why do I not listen to myself? Honestly. I listen to others, doubt my own gut instinct and then my poor kiddo pays for it. And I pay for it, by having to sit next to him for an hour to make sure he gets his two pages done.

Hubby and I went shopping recently and we picked up a globe, which is not a huge deal for most people. But I have been wanting to have a globe in the house for, probably, four or five years now. I am so excited! I told Hubby that buying this globe only makes me want to homeschool Boy A even more. He said that he knew that. Maybe we can still do it.

Okay, so I started off with sickness...let's go back to that. So, last week, Boy B missed Monday through Thursday. He went back Friday. All was good. No school on Monday because of Labor Day (no sports that weekend either). Monday night, Boy B and now Boy A are BOTH running fevers. No school for either one of them the next day. And no school for Boy C because his teacher comes here to the house and we can't risk exposing her to the other boys because she visits a lot of families and some of the kids in those families have kids who are susceptible to sickness.

It's been crazy. This house of sickness. I'm so tired and exhausted. I got sick and ended up having to take a week off of work myself, this week. Thursday night, Boy B wakes up scream-crying. Take him in to get checked out because I know what it is. The doctor's diagnosis: "a rip-roaring ear infection" Hmmmmph. Can we not get ahead of this?

Okay, so here's my take on this. He had strep throat (caused by group A strep), used antibiotics which treats that (and also kills off good fighting cells too), thus making him more prone to the ear infection (caused by strep pneumo) for which we needed a different course of antibiotics. The question is...do I give him those and leave him vulnerable to yet another infection or do I forego them and just wait to see? We have done the wait and see approach with our kids before (oddly enough, it was after Boy A kept getting recurrent ear infections when he was younger that we kept treating him for) and our doctor is supportive of it. Most cases of ear infection clear up on their own in about the same amount of time it takes an antibiotic to work, but without the side effects of the antibiotic. At this point, I am taking the wait and see approach. I have the script ready to go if needed, but I'm hoping we won't need it. He's already missed almost half of his classes already this year. Poor kid may have to be homeschooled, just based on the fact that he's been too sick to be allowed in regular school. :) (Okay, so I'm not totally feeling that bad about it. I would love to homeschool him. But that's just between us.) :)