Rounding out the month.......

So......Last day of September tomorrow. My husband has been sick with a cold for the past week. Not sick enough to call off work. But sick enough to really bother his joints. He has a rheumatoid condition, and when he gets a viral infection, his joints are always really sore.

I woke up this morning feeling "sinus-y" and immediately began taking Airborne. Hope it works, because my youngest already has caught my husband's cold. If I get it, it's almost sure to become pneumonia again. Have had it twice in the past year, and feel like my resistance is really down just now.

If you are keeping score, we have been in school for five weeks now, and have not had even ONE week (or ONE DAY) where at least one member of my family was not sick. This is really wearing me down. Trying to keep the kids healthy enough to go to school. Trying to recover from my own illness. Trying to keep the family ship afloat. It's wearing me out, I'll tell ya! If one of the kids isn't sick, one of us is fighting a new illness.

Just found out yet another of my students has strep! Of course, he was back in school bright and early this morning. Fell asleep on his desk this afternoon. A LITTLE HELP HERE??? KEEP HIM H-O-M-E!!! None of us need to fight off those germs, and he doesn't feel well enough to be in school......so much for administrative policies on illness!!!

If this is September, what's JANUARY like???

So.....YES, I did have a strep infection. Took until Thursday afternoon to figure this out. The strain of strep is called "group C" and is not commonly diagnosed. Just to give you some idea about this form of strep: It kills MOOSE in the wild. It also causes an illness in horses called "strangles" and is often FATAL!!! GRREEEEAAAAT! I am currently just finishing up my THIRD round of antibiotics. Yes, third. It took that many tries to find one that would kill this organism.

I finally got back to work on Tuesday. That very morning, the firstborn wakes up with a 103 degree fever! Will this never end??? She's been off school for four days now! I took her to the doctor late Tuesday afternoon, told him my whole sordid tale, and he sent us on our way with the whole "it's viral" crap! Friday morning, and she's still got a 103 degree temperature, and tonsils that look like she storing walnuts for winter. So.....back to the pediatrician, and lo and behold, NOW we're going to test for strep! (Who'da thunk it???) Just TWO doses of amoxicillin, and she a-febrile, and off the couch! Call me crazy, but given the nature of my illness last week, couldn't we have saved this child three days of suffering and just done the strep culture on Tuesday? Plus, TWO $20.00 office visit co-pays!!! We won't find out what the culture shows until Monday, but I have my money on Strep Group C!

We have not had even one week without illness since school started. If things are this bad in September, what's it going to be like in January, when the REAL cold and flu season starts? HELP!

The latest and greatest....

So. I'm still sick. Not just with pink eye. Now I've got tonsillitis. Can barely swallow, and the whole thing is completely covered with a layer of pus! Yech! So, there's also suspected strep at work here. Won't know that until tomorrow. But at least now I have an antibiotic to start helping me fight this junk! If this isn't significantly better by Thursday morning, I've got to go to an ENT guy to find out what the NEXT step is in this odyssey that's become my life. HELP!

It's that time again!!!

We've officially been back in school for eight (count 'em EIGHT) days, and I 've already got a rip-roaring infection. This one had me up all night with itching, burning, watering eyes. I woke up this morning with a swollen, burning, tearing right eye. So, I call my eye doctor, who informs me that I have to call his "on call" team. The doc. "on call" is one of the poorest excuses for a human being I've ever met. The moment I meet him, I can tell he HATES working weekends (or maybe he just HATES women, can't really tell, because he barely speaks to me.) Turns out, I've got VIRAL pink eye!!! NO TREATMENT FOR IT!!! Tell THAT to my eyes of death!

I can practically tell you the exact minute when I was infected last week. One of my little petri dishes (um, students) comes staggering up to me to tell me that his eyes burn (no shit, they're BLOOD red) and that he doesn't feel so good. He then proceeds to SNEEZE DIRECTLY INTO MY EYES!!! Take him to the school nurse, and within TWO MINUTES, she bounces him back to my classroom. BECAUSE MOM WON'T LEAVE WORK TO COME PICK HIM UP!!! GRRRREEEEEAAAAT!!! Send him back to continue to INFECT the rest of us!!!!

WHEN, OH WHEN, WILL PARENTS PAY ATTENTION TO THEIR CHILDREN BEFORE SENDING THEM TO SCHOOL S-I-C-K?????

P.S.: Went in to school today, (Monday, Sept. 8) and didn't get any farther than the nurse's office. They took one look at my eye, and said bye-bye! So, because I am part-time, I have NO benefits, no sick time, and no substitute in my absence. My work with struggling readers goes un-done when I am not there. I also go unpaid! This is VIRAL pink eye, and will take its own sweet time clearing up. Most likely, it will last 7-10 DAYS, but could go on as long as 3-4 WEEKS! As long as the eye is red, and weeping, I am out of work. SHEESH! Yet, the kid who infected me??? HE'S IN SCHOOL!!!! TELL ME HOW THAT MAKES ANY SENSE???!!!