Death Cold 2012

We have been sick in this house with what I'm naming the Death Cold 2012.  It started with Willow almost 2 weeks ago, she had a runnynose, cough, and a 103 fever for a couple days.  She got over it though and had a bit of a cough and a clear runny nose.  Then Jayden started getting it in his chest, no fever, and a slight runny nose.  Meanwhile, Royal caught it.  He wouldn't admit it, but his voice had dropped like 2 octaves and he was a tad crankier than normal.  Then I started getting a sore throat.  No big deal, but I seemed to go downhill fast after that.  2 days later and I was in bed and I wasn't getting out if I didn't have to.  One night I was desperate enough to take some Codeine cough syrup I had - now this is a big deal because I hardly will take ibuprofen if I don't absolutely have to.  Too bad I didn't sleep all night due to drug induced anxiety filled dreams that woke me up, made me feel all panicked, and then had coughing attacks that the medicine was suppose to be suppressing!  So the next day I didn't get out of bed. 

On Monday the only reason I got out of bed was because Royal had to go to work.  And then I tried to make some breakfast, but since I hadn't gone to the store during the weekend there was only 1 egg for Jayden (sometimes he eats 4!) and I scrambled it up.  Jayden ate it, but said he was still hungry.  I wasn't feeling too hot, so I told him to go into the pantry and whatever he could find he could eat, but I was going back to bed.  Poor Jayden walked around with a bag of pretzels for the rest of the morning.  Now, I really don't like to take antibiotics or giving antibiotics to my kids unless we absolutely need them.  I believe in our bodies ability to heal themselves, and I believe in giving our poor bodies a chance to do it, and gosh darn it, I want those antibiotics to work when we need them and not develop resistances to them because I've given them to my kids every time they've had a runny nose.  However, on my behalf, the kids were feeling better, but were still congested and Willow was complaining a little about one of her ears hurting, and since it had been going on a week, I tried to get us into our doctor on Monday, but they didn't have any open appointments all day.  I'm guessing more people were suffering from the Death Cold 2012.  I did however, manage to get out of bed and we went to our chiropractor to see if she could help drain our colds out of our heads and check the kid's ears.  Their ears looked good, one of Willow's a little pink, but pretty good. 

We carried on as normal, I tried to force myself to get out of bed and do things because sometimes it takes moving around to get to feeling better.  However, I just kept feeling worse and worse.  My sinuses were completely plugged, my ears were ringing and hurting, my chest hurt from coughing so much, and one of my eyes started to catch a cold as well.  So, on Thursday, I gave in and called the doctor, I figured walking around and crying for a half an hour in the morning because I felt so terrible just wasn't going to cut it anymore.  I'm also pretty sure I saw Royal dance a jig at the end of the bed when I said I was calling.  He'd been feeling better for days now and had to start bringing dinner home with him because he knew I wasn't cooking.  And the poor kids were hungry and were eating things like french fries and peaches for dinner.  One day, Jayden went to school with nothing but these horrible cheese puffs for lunch because I hadn't been to the store in over a week and had no fresh fruit or veggies and no bread to make a sandwich and he didn't like my peanut butter tortilla idea, and I didn't feel well enough to come up with anything else.  So I called and they got me in right away.

I LOVE our family doctor, however sometimes her wait times are sooooo long.  So, I always have to come prepared with things to do with the kids, things like snacks, games, coloring, music for a dance party.  Eventually they get bored of those things and start tearing apart the room, but I just figure that's motivation for the doctor to hurry up and get in there.  The nurse came in to take my vitals, took one look at me and and said (she's a big black woman named Thelma), "oooooo, girl, the doctor's gonna give you a shot!"  I just laughed and said, "No, she's not!"   Jayden panicked and said, 'Just for mom, right?  I'm not getting a shot!"  And Thelma took one look at my kids with their slightly runny noses and said, "I'm taking these kids with me and weighing them in, just in case the doctor decides to give them medicine too"  And now you know why the wait times can get long.  Our doctor spends lots of time talking with her patients and sometimes, like in my case, 1 patient turns into 3.  So the doctor finally comes in, and my kids love her, so they hop right up on the exam table and have her check them out just for fun.  Turns out Willow has an ear infection in one of her ears.  It also turns out Jayden had some wheezing in his lungs that needed to be taken care of (he has cold induced asthma, so wheezing can become bad).  It also turned out that Thelma was right and I had to get 2 shots, right in the rear.  One an antibiotic and one a steroid to help get my ears to heal up before I bored my plane for Washington in less than a week.  The kids were SO excited to see me have to get a shot.  Willow had to come over and remove my band aid make sure there was a hole there from the needle and put my band aid back on.  Jayden told me I was really brave and gave me a Diego sticker from the basket.

The kids and I are feeling much better.  Sometimes it takes feeling much better to realize just how bad you really felt!  I have a 2nd oral antibiotic that I have to take too and every time I take it, Royal looks at me and says, "Now, Rachel.  What have you learned from this experience?"  I pretend that I can't understand what he's talking about.  :)