I'm back!

It’s been quite the week and a half since I last blogged.  I totally got thrown off my game when my daughter fell ill last weekend.  In all of her 8 and a half years of life, this was undoubtedly the most sick I’ve ever seen her. The first day wasn’t so bad and comprised of a sore throat and low-grade fever.  A negative strep test later, we were back home to wait out the virus. However, later that night, her temperature spiked to 104⋄F and stayed there for 3 full days.  J has always run very high fevers, necessitating several trips to the emergency room when she was a baby - there is nothing like a 1-yr old with a 105 ⋄F to mobilize an emergency room!   This virus was no exception, and Motrin or Tylenol alone was not enough to control the fever.  Every 24 hours, she seemed to get worse - including day 3 when she basically slept the entire day.  Thank goodness on day 4, the fever broke but by now my son had it too.  Fortunately, he rallied within 24 hours and didn’t get thrown under the bus in quite the same way as his big sis.  I’m convinced this may have been swine flu and wanted the pediatrician to test the kids for it.  I figured that their school would want to know if they had cases spreading among their students, and I wanted the information before having to make a decision on whether to get the kids immunized with the swine flu vaccine.  If they’ve already had this season’s H1N1, there’s no point to having them vaccinated as they already would have the antibodies to virus.  I was surprised that the pediatrician was not testing for H1N1 and stated that we weren’t seeing it widely in this area.  So now I don’t know, so we will be making the decision when the vaccine becomes available in our area.

Both Jordan and Ben are back at school now, armed with some very cute gifts for their teachers and the school nurse.  Thanks to Just a Girl for the idea!  According to J, the third-graders are having a great time hamming up the “toxic” effects of the hand sanitizer.  Now I need something equally as cool for next month!

Halloween Hand Sanitizer