Sick Lindey

I hate it when the kids are sick-especially when they are little. On April 23rd, Lindey woke up at 7:00 am throwing up and threw up every 10 minutes until 11:00 am.  That was not a fun day.  She did take a four hour nap after that and woke up feeling much better. So glad she got over it quickly and wasn't sick for her birthday!

Trip to the Clinic

Micah was not feeling well for several days.  On April 1st, I finally decided to take him to the clinic to find out what was going on.They got him all checked in and Lisa took his Vitals. Micah's heart rate was 63 beats per minute.  It is suppose to be above 90 and even higher when kids are sick.  They decided to do an EKG and lab work to make sure nothing else was going on.  

 Wouldn't you know it, everything came back normal! April Fools!  LOL Nasty Virus--glad no one else came down with it!

And the Craziness Continues...

   I wish I could report that everyone is healthy and life is back to normal, but it is not.  On top of the strep we had last week, Micah and Eli both came down with fevers Monday-Wednesday.  I didn't get much done because all they wanted to do was to have me hold them.  On Tuesday, I began to have a cough.  Nothing I was too worried about.  Morgan also came home from school on Tuesday because she had thrown up at school.  She spent the next two days sleeping on the couch here at home.  Wednesday was horrible.  I felt awful!  It came on very fast.  I was achy, my cough had settled into my chest overnight, my throat was feeling scratchy, I was all stuffed up, but my nose was constantly runny, and I felt exhausted!  Despite all that, I did get the laundry done. :)  John wasn't fairing much better than myself.  We both lost our voices--more of a problem for him than me where he is teaching, but somehow getting after the kids who were feeling much better by this time just doesn't have the same affect when you can't do anything but whisper their name. LOL  By Thursday the kids seemed to be doing much better and John and I were even feeling a little more human.  Until I got a call from John on Thrusday about 2:00pm that Ian had broken out in a huge rash all over his face and arms.  It didn't itch or bother him, so we were thinking where he has been on Amoxicillan that he may be allergic. (John's brother and a neice or sister are allergic to it--which we didn't know about until now.)  We just decided to watch him and get him into the clinic the next day. (All appointments were booked for Thurs.)  The clinic opened at 7am so John took him before school, and Ian's rash was coving him from head to toe.  The PA changed his antibiotic and gave him some allergy medicine.  He didn't want Ian at school "in case it was contagious".  Ian was devistated--he hasn't missed a day of school since pre-school and wants to keep his perfect attendance record in tact if at all possible.  Because John works at the school, and Friday is a half-day (he'd only be there for 2 1/2 hours), after talking with the principal, secretary, and Ian's teacher, we decided to let him go to school, but have him sit in the "In-school suspension" room so he wouldn't be around the other kids.  Ian's attendance record is in tact, and we followed the PA's advice.  Everyone was happy.  The PA called later to tell me that it may not be an allergic reaction, but Fifth's Disease, and to watch the other kids to see if any of them end up with the same rash.  John's sister-in-law checked on Ian several times on Friday, and decided that we should take him to our doctor in Price on Saturday.  By Saturday morning, Morgan and Eli had broken out in a rash as well. Their rashes didn't look anything like Ian's.  By Friday night, his had turned his entire face red so it looked like he was sunburned, and was beginning to do so on his back as well.  His rash looked more like welts than a rash.  It was so funny to listen to the nurse and doctor as they came in to the room to see what the problem was.  Ian would lift up the sleeves of his shirt, and there would be an intake of breath and a "WHOA!"  They weren't quite sure what was the matter either, so they sent us over to the hospital to have some bloodwork done and gave us steriods to help the rash go away.  She said it could be Fifth's disease, it could be an allergic reaction to the amoxicillan, or it may even be that Ian has Mono--a rash occurs like that if you have mono and take antibiotics.  So, we'll know more on Monday when they call with the results.  I took some pictures of Ian so you all could see what his rash looks like.  They pictures don't do it justice.  He looked much worse! :)  His rash seems to be slowly disappearing, so we are glad for that.  Do I dare say that we're hoping for a healthier week, again??  Maybe we'll just leave it at let's hope the coughs go away, and no one comes down with anything new this week.  We've had our fill!

It has been a doozy of a week!

This week has been interesting to say the least...

Monday: 
   I had a doctor's appointment in Price, bright and early (8:50am) so we had to be up and going and I had to leave the same time as John, 7:30am.  I had my glucose test (Can I just say that since they took the carbonation out of that drink that it is even nastier now?? Yuck!!) which was the reason for the early appointment.  I had to be fasting for it and the only other appointment was at 4 in the afternoon.  After the doctor's appointment (everything was fine--measuring where I should, heartbeat of the baby was normal, a little depressing weight gain, but I got word the next day that my test was normal) we picked up some things at Walmart and headed home.  We were pulling into town at 12:45pm, Eli was sleeping and I thought to myself that I should be able to put him in his bed to finish his nap, get things put away, and still have some time to do a few things before the kids came home from school. Boy was I wrong!  I heard a funny noise behind me, and looked to see what it was.  Eli was emptying his stomach all over the place (sound familiar Dad, Mom, and Adrienne? Leah did the same thing as they pulled in my driveway for Morgan's baptism. lol).  I groaned knowing the mess that awaited me when we got home.  At least I didn't have to smell it for long, and it was contained to his carseat so I just had to throw it in the wash.  I wouldn't be cleaning carpets in the house!  Eli and Micah both get carsick, so I wasn't sure if it was that, or if he was sick.  Carsickness usually doesn't happen for them between here and Price or Grand Junction--only through Mountain passes.(Can't wait for the trip over Indian Canyon to Vernal in two weeks--warm up your washer Mom!)  Eli was pretty clingy the rest of the afternoon, but around dinner time started acting normal again.  I didn't think more of it until after brushing his teeth and giving him his flouride pill to chew up, he ran back in the living room to where John and the kids were.  I then heard John yelling to bring a rag--Eli had just thrown up.  It wasn't much this time, and John said he thought he choked on his pill a little.  He didn't have a fever and was fine again, so we decided just to keep an eye on him and see what happend the next day.

Tuesday:
   I stayed home from exercising at the church just as a precaucion and walked on my treadmill at home.  Eli ate breakfast fine, and was acting like himself.  We showered, and after getting the boys dressed, turned to getting myself ready for the day.  Eli came back in the bathroom with throw up on his legs.  Again, it wasn't much, and I don't know what he was doing, but I couldn't find it anywhere in the house.  Weird.  Nothing happened the rest of the day, so I figured we were out of the woods with that one.  I had heard some stomach thing was going around, so that must have been it.

Wednesday:
   I had an appointment at the clinic to get Eli's immunizations finished up that our insurance didn't cover at his 18 month appointment the end of January.  (I was going to do this in Price at the Health Dept. on Monday, but they only do immunizations from 3-5pm, Mon.-Thurs., no acceptions.  My appointment was over by 9:00am, and I didn't want to wait around until 3. I called our clinic here in Green River and was told they couldn't give us the cheap shots because we have insurance, but the immunization he needed was only 46.00 with a 10.00 admin. fee, and we are on the sliding scale, so we'd only have to pay half that.  John and I figured that it would be worth the 25 or 30 dollars to just come home and have it done here.)  I didn't realize he had to wait for at least 30 days between immunizations for the antibodies that are building up, etc. etc. so he didn't end up getting immunizations.  Kind of a pain, but I did find out that since our insurance doesn't cover all immunizations, that we qualify for "under insured" and they can, in fact, give us the cheap immunizations like at the Health Department. Yea!!  So it wasn't a total loss.  We ran some errands around town, came home and ate lunch, and then I put Eli down for a nap.  He slept for 3 hours, and when he woke up, his eyes were goopy and one of them was red in the outer corner.  Great.  Pink eye has been going around as well. 

Thursday:
   I called the clinic as soon as they opened and got Eli an appointment.  At 11am, we headed to the clinic and got all checked in with the nurse.  She weighed and measured him, took his oxygen level, and put down what his symptoms were.  She was playing with both the boys, and happened to tickle Micah's neck.  She got a puzzled look on her face and checked his lymph nodes.  She said he felt a little swollen and asked if I wanted the PA to look at him.  I said sure, we were already there, no sense making another trip if he did come down with something.  She mentioned there was a weird strain of strep throat going around that did not have the normal strep symptoms.  She checked him into the computer as well, and we waited for the PA. A few minutes later he came in.  He looked over Eli, and said he had pink eye and would give him drops for that.  He said his throat was a little red, and we talked about his symptoms.  They did a strep test on Micah, which came back POSITIVE!!  What??  He had not been acting sick at all!  No fever, sore throat, cough, upset anything!  The PA just laughed when he heard that.  He said it's nothing they've ever seen before.  The symptoms for this strep is Headache, Coughing, and/or Upset Stomach. They put Micah on antibiotics and Eli also because once one in the house has it, the whole family will probally end up with it.  Where Eli has been acting strange and has some of the symptoms, we didn't test him, just treated him.  The PA thanked me for bringing in my perfectly healthy children so they could be diagnosed with strep.  Ha, ha.  He told me if anyone was sicker than Micah, that we might want to bring them in.  Morgan has had a cough since Monday, so I made an appointment for later that afternoon for her.  I picked her up from school about a half hour before it was over and took her into the clinic as well.  She ended up being a little red and swollen on her tonsils, so she is on antibiotics as well.  I decided to just get appointments for the other two boys the next day. (The Health Department had been contacted about the weird strain of strep and they had the school nurse at the high school sending anyone home with a headache, cough, or fever--needless to say, the clinic was extremely busy!)

Friday:
  After school, we headed back to the clinic for they boys appointments.  John decided to come along as well, and just have the whole family checked out. Both boys were put on Antibiotics as a precaution, and John was given the shot.  I am the only one who lucked out without any of the symptoms, so I was not treated.  I think the clinic said they had seen 3 times as many patients in one day. (18 is the norm--you do the math!)  The entire clinic staff ended up with it.  They were having families come in a get treated if there was one person in the house with it.  One of the high school teachers said that they only had 11 of the 28 seventh graders in school, and half of those didn't feel well, so it was a mellow day!  John had 3 kids missing from his class on Friday.  John's afraid that it's just beginning at the Elementary, so it will be interesting to see what happens next week there.

That was our crazy week.  No one really acted all that sick, except Eli at the beginning of the week, but apparantly Strep throat is running rampant through our home.  I was hoping everyone would be feeling much better at this point in time--being on antibiotics and all, but I guess that's not the case.  Ian has developed a cough, and Zander has had a headache since last night that won't go away.  I guess strep isn't the only thing going around! I'm hoping for a healthier week!

Trip to the E.R.

  Sunday started out as a normal day.  Everyone was feeling pretty good.  Halfway through Primary, Ian came and found me and told me that his stomach hurt.  He was in tears, so John decided to take him home.  When the rest of us got home from church, we ate lunch around 2pm and had a pretty relaxing day.  We watched TV snuggled under a blanket, I worked on my ward newsletter, the kids played.  John started not feeling well (again) and getting a headache and a fever.  About 8:30pm the kids were getting hungry, and as it was almost bedtime and we hadn't done anything about dinner yet, I put Eli in his high chair and was going to whip something up for them to eat real quick.  While I was doing this, John went to the bathroom.  The next thing I heard was a faint bang, and a few seconds after that the kids yelling, "Dad fell!!" I went running into our bedroom to find the lamp knocked off the nightstand, the Kleenex box smashed in the windowsill, and John laying on the floor next to the bed with his head against the wall about 6 inches from the floor.  It seriously took me about 30 seconds to wake him up.  The kids were freaking out, Zander was crying, and after I got everyone calmed down, we got John on the bed.  He said he didn't know what had happened.  He went to the bathroom, started feeling dizzy, so he walked along his sink, the tub, and my sink to the door so he could lay down on the bed.  He thought he had made it there, but apparantly passed out before he got that far.  He kept complaining that his hip hurt, but it wasn't the side I found him on, and I don't think he could have rolled over from where I found him, so we're not sure what happened.  He also had a few scrapes above his left eye, again, not the side he fell on. After making sure he was okay, I asked him if he wanted a blessing.  He said yes, so I called his Dad and a neighbor (thanks, Dale!) to come over.  His mom came with dad, and called Shlisa, John's sister in law,  to come check him out. (She is an EMT) Thomas and Shlisa came and after giving him his blessing and making sure he was okay, Shlisa suggested we take him to the clinic.  He's been having migranes which don't run in his family for about a week and a half, and sometimes he feels lots of pressure behind his right eye and it goes blurry.  She said since we didn't know how hard he hit his head when he fell it would be a good idea.  I called the local P.A. and had him meet us at the clinic.  Being Sunday, they weren't open.  They did a urine sample which came back normal, and a strep test that was negative. (John's throat started feeling really dry that afternoon.)He didn't like that John was only 35, and having 3 or 4 migranes the past week either and was worried about Encephalitis (swelling of the brain). He wanted blood work done and possibly a CT scan.  Since we are rural, if they did the blood work there, they wouldn't get the results until Tuesday and he didn't want to wait that long. They gave John some tylenol, and so, thus came a trip to the ER.  By this time it was almost 10:00pm.  John's dad offered to drive us, and his Mom stayed with the kids and got them to bed. (Thank you both!) 
   We arrived at the ER in Price at 10:45pm and by 11:15 John was admitted and in a bed with an IV and blood samples taken.  Around 11:30 an ambulance came in with a patient that had diabetes, congestive heart failure, and wasn't really coherent.  Of course with our luck as it is, they put him in the bed next to us, so we got to listen to him wail and scream for the entire time we were there.  He wasn't really comunicative with the nurses.  Just kept wailing away. :)  We waited until 1am to see Dr. Perkins.  He came in and did the usual temp, light in the throat, eyes, etc.  He said he could see some puss way back in his right sinus. (where all the pressure, and blurriness is occuring).  He also said he has a virus that is related to Herpes on the roof of his mouth and in his throat.  He had me look at the spots so I could tell if there were any more, or they got bigger after we went home.  They looked like pimples.  Really red with a white head.  He wanted a CT scan done (he was worried about the puss behind his eye and wanted to make sure that everything was okay everywhere else in his head.  The Dr. also told us that they may possibly do a lumbar puncture depending on the results of his bloodwork.
  They took John for his CT scan at 1:30am.  While he was gone, they moved us across the way to a bed that had opened up.  The nurses felt bad we were stuck next to the wailing man.  Although we could still hear him, it was much quieter. :)  They brought John back at 1:36am. 
  At 2:24am Dr. Perkins came back in with the results of the CT scan.  He said his brain was normal, which was what he wanted to see.  John also has some pollups and systs in his sinus' on both sides.  His septum in his nose curves to the right, and we may need to have those things taken care of in the future.  We weren't really surprised to hear this--his mom and his brother have both had surgery to take care of the same thing. John's blood and urine all came back normal, so no lumbar puncture, yea!!   The Dr. said that they usually don't put people on an antibiotic for sinus infections, but since it's been going on for 10-12 days, it was necessary.  To help with the antibiotic (they are hard on your stomach) he told us to get Kefir yogurt to coat his stomach.  He said to drink lots of fluids, and to get lots and lots of rest.  For the virus in his throat he told him to chew sugar free gum like Stride, or Orbit.  There is an ingredient in there that fights the bacteria in those kinds of infections.  We thought that was interesting.
  The nurse came in at 2:44am to take the IV out, gave him his first dose of antibiotic, and released us from the hospital.  We were out of the hospital at 2:55am.  Of course, at that late hour, there was no grocery stores open in Price, so we couldn't get the yogurt, and just came home. 
John's dad stopped for Gas in Wellington and to get a drink.  The clerks were doing shift change and were counting out the till, so we didn't get out of there until almost 3:30am. 
  We made it home around 4:30 and after figuring out how to set the alarm (that's usually John's job), fell into bed.  I got 3 whole hours of sleep. John got a few more as he slept on and off at the hospital.  I had to get the kids up and ready for school, and with two little ones at home, a nap was not in the forcast. I was actually feeling very blessed that I wasn't feeling the effects of my late night.  I was able to care for John and the little boys and even canned a few batches of apple juice.
  John's parents went back to Price to fill John's prescription and get the yogurt and gum for him.  They needed to fill a prescription anyway, and it made my day a lot easier!  Thank you, again!  We could have had the clinic fill the prescription, but they can only dispense once a day at 3:30pm.  We decided we didn't want to wait that long, and our grocery store doesn't carry the yogurt anyway.
  Ian called me from school at 11:30am saying his stomach hurt.  I asked if he wanted me to come get him, and he said he wanted to wait until 1pm so he didn't mess up his perfect attendance record. (He hasn't missed a day of school ever!)  I told him to call me if it got too bad, but I never heard back from him.  John and I decided to take him into the clinic.  He just hasn't been himself.  His appetite was less than half of normal, and he usually doesn't complain unless it's really bad.  After school we ended up at the clinic (2nd time in two days).  The P.A. just shook his head at me. :)  He concluded that he thinks Ian has an ulcer.  (**They are NOT caused by stress.  Just an overproduction of acid in the stomach.  My 10 year old is not worrying himself to death--just thought you should know.)   :)  So Ian is now on an acid reducer as a two week trial to make sure that is really what it is.  He's been on it two days now, and hasn't had a stomach ache, so yea!  That was a fairly easy fix.  The P.A. told us that after a month we could reduce the dose, and after 6 months, reduce it again, and hopefully after that he'll be off of it completely.  Hope it works! :)
So, now that you've read my novel, I hope that it didn't bore anyone too much.  I'm writing it down mostly for myself anyways.  We've had someone sick in our home for more than 3 weeks now.  I'm counting my blessings that everything worked out the way it did, and we got everyone taken care of.  I think we've had our turn--we should be good to go the rest of the winter months. :)  Cross your fingers!

Not done yet...

John came down with a fever last night.  That just leaves Ian and I.  I REALLY hope this is the end!  I guess we'll find out in another day or two. :)

Home Sick

I mentioned in John's birthday post that Morgan was not feeling well.  Apparantly this virus is pretty contagious.  Two days after she was feeling better, it was Sunday, and we got ready for church as we normally do.  During Sacrament meeting, Micah was sitting by Grandma.  John's mom told me to feel Micah's head as she was headed to primary.  He felt hot to her.  I felt him, and sure enough, he was very warm.  John brought him home and he spent his two days with the fever.  He felt better and once again, we thought we were in the clear, until Wednesday when I got a call from the school saying Zander was sick and I needed to come pick him up.  So started his two day fever.  Later that night, Eli was feeling warm, and we are now on the tale end of his fever.  So, either we're really done now since it's been through Morgan, Micah, Zander, and Eli, or in approximately a day and a half John, Ian, or I will come down with it.  I'm hoping it's the first prediction as I've had a cough for a week and don't want to add fever to my list of ailments. :)  Plus, I'm just tired of sick kids!  While I love spending time with them, holding them, and making them feel better--after all that's in my job description--it would be nice to get a few things done other than watching cartoons on the couch.  A good night's sleep without fevered kids in the bed would also be appreciated.  Here's hoping for good health in our home!  I cleaned everything today, and sprayed everything down with Lysol, and have been airing out the house, so I think I've done my part. :) 

As I said, Zander was home from school for a day and a half with his fever, and Micah was so excited to have his playmate back at home.  He followed Zander everywhere on Thursday.  Zander was feeling much better so was up and around a bit more.  He asked if he could play the computer, so I got his game on, put Eli down for a nap, and actually had a few minutes to do the dishes and pick up the house.  I walked in the kitchen, and saw one of those rare moments when the kids are happy and the house is peaceful.  Micah was laying on the desk watching Zander play his game. (I know he's not suppose to be on the desk, but it was cute, so I had to snap a picture.) I love it when the kids get along!