We interrupt your regular weekend programming...

... to bring you this Extra Special Bout of Germies! Kiddo woke up an hour after bedtime last night and came back downstairs complaining of a sore throat. I dutifully checked the scene out with assistance of a flashlight and it didn't look remarkably red, bumpy, patchy, blotchy, swollen or any of those other things that one doesn't want to see when peering down one's child's esophagus. I gave her a dose of ibuprofen anyhow, as she was quite insistent that it was hurting, and waited out the night to see what morning would bring.

And morning brought it BIG, y'all. A crying kid who stumbled to the bathroom, clutching at her stomach and saying that her "throat hurt so much" that she "couldn't swallow her slobber" (eloquent, eh?) and then promptly vomited and who was sporting a forehead hot enough to fry eggs upon. A quick check of her temperature verified the egg-frying abilities of her skin, as she had a fever of 102.9. Given that she's not quite proficient in oral thermometer techniques (and that she was afraid she was going to vomit again), I was using that more as a rough estimate of her fever and guessing the actuality might've been a bit further up the scale.

Hubby prepared a "barf bucket" (we're full of the elegance 'round the Smith house) and got Kiddo settled in on the couch while I called the pediatrician. Shortly thereafter, Kiddo and I were on our way to the doctor's office to meet the on-call doc. There was one other sick kid there ahead of us, so Kiddo had to nervously clutch her barf bucket and leopard in the waiting room for a bit, then it was our turn. One rapid strep test later it was confirmed: Kiddo has a raging case of strep throat. She wound up vomiting in the exam room for good measure, and he wrote us out a prescription and sent us on our way.

Kiddo rallied briefly, playing Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii with her dad (his reward to her for cooperating at the doctor with the whole "jab the extra-long q-tip down your throat for the strep test" bit) but then she began to fade. She then spent the majority of the afternoon like this:



I woke her up around 4:00 to check her temperature. Even with a dose of ibuprofen (and antibiotic) coursing through her veins, her fever was up to 103.6. Again, with the oral thermometer, so it is quite possibly higher than that. So, now we're doubling up, doing acetaminophen in between the ibuprofen to try and bring the fever down.

The saddest part to me was how Kiddo was really, really upset that she won't be able to go to school tomorrow. She was cheered by the news that if she has no fever tomorrow, she'll be able to go back to school on Tuesday. (Though that sky-high temperature she's presently heating the house with doesn't bode well for tomorrow being fever-free...) She actually cried this morning at the thought of not going to school tomorrow. I wept a small tear myself at the notion that after only 4 days of school this year, her chance for the Perfect Attendance award is shot for another year. Who are those kids that have perfect attendance? Not elementary school kids, I'm guessing....

My biggest concern is that the last time she had strep, it developed into pneumonia. I don't want that happening again. Here's hoping the antibiotic (a new one to us - Cefdinir, which sound for all the world to me like a character in the Lord of the Rings movies) works well and she is much improved by tomorrow morning... Oh, and the icing on the cake of the Super Sick Kid Sunday? The cat wanted in on the barfing action and proceeded to gack up hairballs and cat food (too hastily gulped down, methinks) in three separate places on the kitchen floor. I tell ya, if Hubby barfs, he's on his own.