Wednesday, February 20, 2008

phew! It's *only* strep!

We had quite a scare today. I got the kids in to the doctor at 3pm and I knew I wanted to request a strep test for Ted. He still had his 103.8 (on the ear thermometer which says to add a degree to the total!) and would almost cry every time he coughed, saying his throat hurt so much. Mae went off to school and the boys, Paul and I went to Ted's conference. Considering how sick he was, I am amazed at how focused he was. It was so cool, as usual. His writing is so much clearer, his reading is coming along beautifully (I loved when she'd ask him to find a word in a sentence, so we could be sure he wasn't just memorizing...cool!), his math skills are amazing (like last time, she emphasized that he has such a math brain). She did the cube thing again where she'd show him X amount of cubes and then have him close his eyes while she took some away. When he'd open them he'd tell her how many she had behind her back. No problem. Cool. His art is way cool too. They did Self Portraits again and it's so neat to see the change in his drawing (the eyes are beautiful! eyelashes and everything!). I especially loved his body tracing. Their 3rd grade buddies traced them on paper and then they cut out the parts of the body, colored them, glued them on and labeled them. I loved that at Ted's feet (complete with toes!) were all the Pokemon he likes. Hee! Anyway, a great conference and it's just so nice to hear that he's a good worker and that he's doing just fine. He's in a really bright class so sometimes I worry that he's behind, but then I come to one of these and realize that he and the other 3 kindergarten boys are all at the same level, which is where they should be! Ahh...

So, next we went to the hospital to visit Erin and 9 hour old Baby Kit! How COOL! He is so tiny and perfect and CUTE! I had the boys wear masks in the room because I didn't know what they had yet. They weren't very interested anyway and spent most of the time in the window nook thing. Erin looks great and apparently Henry is already calling Kit "my baby." SO cute!!

And onto the drama. After a lunch at the hospital cafeteria and picking up Mae from school, we headed home for naps. All 3 kids napped for 2 hours (I had to wake Sam to go to the doc). After seeing Ted and taking his 104.3 fever (!!), the doc was SURE he had influenza. Yikes! This is bad for asthmatics because it can destroy the lung tissue. They swabbed him for flu and for strep, because I insisted. The doc was astonished that the strep came back positive but we were all relieved that the flu was negative. Phew. This would have meant a 24 hour stay in the hospital so they could monitor his lungs, plus a round of Tamiflu. They prescribed antibiotics for Ted and Mae (who appears to be starting what Ted has) and I decided to leave Sam as he is, since he seems to be fighting his malady just fine on his own. He's bouncing off the walls, and besides a cough, seems just fine to me. If Ted (or Mae) aren't better by Friday, we're to return for a re-test for influenza. Motrin/Ibuprofin round the clock til they feel better and the fevers go down (Mae's has lingered at around 99-100). So, PHEW!

Everyone is asleep, Paul is off playing soccer and I'm exhausted. No skiing for Ted tomorrow, poor guy, but hopefully they'll all be on the mend by the weekend and in time for school next week. He chose a good week to be sick, since there is no school all week! Phew again!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

E - Glad to hear that things aren't more serious. Still though (((hugs))) @ the sickies. We've been going round for the past week with everyone taking turns - today is Connor - Hope you're all back to 100+% in no time! - T