And so it begins. Another school year, another year of sick kids.
This was the thought I had the minute my youngest son, John, 4, said he wasn’t feeling well.
I had just returned home; and he was hiding underneath a blanket with his favorite monkey, while my oldest son Matthew, 6, was running around the room playing with toys.
I didn’t even have to ask. I just knew something wasn’t right. For any of you who have met my John, you can vouch for me when I say that boy is always running, jumping and most importantly talking. The boy never stops talking from the minute he gets up to the minute he falls asleep. In fact, I have even heard him talking in his sleep before.
So I asked him if he was feeling alright. He said no. I picked him up to hold him and as soon as he was in my arms I could tell he felt warm.
I took his temperature; and sure enough he was at 100.2. Nothing big, but then he started complaining of a sore throat.
I gave him Tylenol, put a damp, cool washcloth on his forehead and set to work making him a slushy, which he said would make him feel better.
The whole time he just sat there watching a monster truck movie, eating his slushy quietly.
To confirm the fact he wasn’t feeling good was at bedtime, when he actually went to sleep immediately. Usually, he has to come out of his room three or four times a night with various excuses as to why he can’t go to bed. They range from, my monkey, the stuffed animal he can’t part with, needs a hug to it’s too light in my room or it’s too dark in my room. You get the idea.
But nope. None of that. He went right to sleep.
Further confirming my suspicion that he was sick, is he got up three times in the night. Also abnormal for him. Even though it is hard to get him to sleep, he rarely wakes up in the middle of the night.
The second time he work up in the night, he said his eye hurt. I told him I had to turn the light on to see. “Oh No!” I thought. It was matted shut. I took a warm wash cloth and removed the sticky substance from his eye.
“Great. Pink eye again,” I thought.
I put him to bed and started thinking of a game plan for the next day. I would definitely need to get him in to see his regular doctor; and I wouldn’t be able to go to work and he couldn’t go to daycare or preschool. With this in mind, I was just about to fall asleep when he we woke me up again. This time he needed more medicine, but refused the Tylenol because it didn’t taste good.
Sheesh. If he had to drink the medicine I had growing up, he would never complain again. But that’s another story.
Anyway, the next morning, Matthew comes in to tell me good morning and I look at his face.
“Oh No!,” I think to myself. “He has it too.”
After I make the all-important phone call to the doctor’s office, the minute they open up the get appointments for them, I make all of the phone calls to let everyone know my sons will not be going to school, preschool, daycare, riding the bus and I will not be going to work. About a half an hour later, I have everything taken care of.
With an afternoon doctor’s appointment, it was just time to sit and wait for the confirmation of what I already know. Then I will have to make another game plan to figure out how to handle the next day.
While waiting for the doctor’s appointment to arrive, I start doing a major house cleaning or more like a sterilization if you will. I sure don’t want myself or my husband to get pink eye. I set to work washing all of the sheets, pillowcases, comforters, blankets and stuffed animals the boys have in their rooms and in the living room. Next, I Lysol all of the toys they have been playing with, the couches, along with all of the door knobs and light switches. Some may think that is a bit ridiculous, but to them I would say “try having pink eye.”
With most of the house clean, I wait.
At the doctor’s office, it only takes the doctor one glance and he knows too. John is crying because his eye hurts so bad and Matthew is just looking at all of the designs on the wall.
The prescription for oral antibiotics and eye drops is faxed in; and now we wait again.
We drive around town to kill time, I stop at a drive-thru and get them some slushes to sip on while we wait. About a half an hour later, with the medication in my hand, we drive home. And now its 10 days of medication for both boys and they should be good to go.
Now, If I can only get through one more day of making all of the phones calls, washing all of their bedding and another mega house cleaning. Only one more day and then they aren’t contagious anymore. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t get it.
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