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.

Friday Freakout: In which Heather has entirely lost her shizzle

Have you seen my shizzle anywhere? Because I've lost it. Now, I thought I had lost it yesterday, after being forced into playing Let's Kick Up Some Major Drama For No Reason Other Than I Feel Like It with a member of my family that ended with me hanging up the phone on the Drama-Producer (though not until I said, as calmly as I could, "I am getting very upset and cannot talk to you any more right now. Goodbye.") and said family member is now Shunning Me With a Stony Silence, by all accounts and appearances. Yee-ha. Yep, thought that was where I waved goodbye to my shizzle as it packed up its belongings in a little red bandanna, tied it to the end of a stick and went whistling off up the road out of our subdivision for Parts Unknown.

Nope. Turns out I still had some last shards of shizzle left. And I've lost them today. It seems that the simple and easy transition we were going to have for Kiddo's services in her new school? Not going to be that simple and easy. Also, the evaluation the school psychologist was supposed to do at her old school sometime between January and June? The one that she just never quite got around to doing? (Kiddo's triennial review, for those of you In The Know about the world of Special Ed.) The one that I specifically made a point of asking the head of SpEd in our new district about whether I needed to push to have done and she told me no, it wouldn't be necessary? Well, it might be necessary after all. The entire "classification, qualification and determination of services" wheel, it might need reinventing. I'd had such faith and confidence in what I'd initially been told, way back in mid-May when we were only 2 days into living at our new house and I'd started making phone calls to the Big Cheeses here in the new school district. Silly, misplaced optimism. Now, it seems that we are facing a a whole new set of hurdles, albeit it lovely, freshly painted ones as befitting our posh, new district.

So, there you have it. Shizzle fully lost with no GPS system able to track it. And, in my current shizzle-lost state, I also still have the fun of Will Kiddo Need Eye Surgery? and its partner Will the Insurance Company Pay for Vision Therapy in Lieu of Surgery? to tango with. It takes two to tango, and that is two plus one, so I don't know how that will work. I mean, I've never been Ginger Rogers... Maybe I can convince them to do a line dance instead. I'm a Chicken Dancing ace, and also quite good at the Macarena, and Kiddo's now taught me the Tooty Ta, as she has learned in summer camp........

....and some late-breaking news from Hubby. This just in: as his current company was bought out a few months ago, he has just learned that our health insurance will be transitioning from what we have now to the new company's insurance carrier instead. We'll learn the pertinent deets in September and coverage would switch (if it has to) come January. So, all the fighting with the insurance company over coverage of potential vision therapy? Could be moot. Could be a wheel that will need reinventing and a tango that will need to be redanced after the first of the year.

So, I've lost it. Freaking out. Freaking out and PMSing and I can't take one, tiny, little additional thing. No thank you.

I think I'll move to Australia. Or just bury myself at the bottom of a jumbo bag of Cheez Doodles, with a pint of Ben and Jerry's in the other hand.

Le sigh.

/whinging, ranting, raving, yelling, screaming, crying

Hurltastic happenings

So, within mere minutes of my finishing the previous, rambly post and heading into Kiddo's room to play with her, things took a very, very quick downhill turn.

Kiddo asked me to read her a story. We curled up on her bed with one of her Skippyjon books and I began to read. As I was reading, she quickly went from fine to very much not fine. I could literally feel her start burning up and she went gradually more limp against me. I immediately flashed back to this past spring, when she had her first ever case of strep throat. This seemed eerily similar to the onset of strep last time, and I was feeling quite concerned as I took her temperature. 102.3. Yikes - that came on fast. Recalling the notice that came home from school on Thursday announcing that strep throat had been diagnosed in her classroom, I immediately grabbed the phone and called the doctor.

About an hour later, I brought my feverish, complaining, lethargic child into the pediatrician's exam room where the nurse took her temp again (up to 102.6) and then did the strep test. She left the room to process the test and Kiddo climbed off the exam table and into my lap. She straddled my legs and pressed herself flat against my front, tucking her head under my chin because she had the chills. She stayed that way while I read her a story and we waited for the nurse to return. A few moments later, there was a knock on the door, heralding the return of the nurse.

Unfortunately, at that same exact second, there also came a tidal wave of vomit. I suddenly felt something warm gushing over my admittedly ample bosom and lap, pulled Kiddo away and saw the fountain pouring forth. I looked up at the nurse as I did that weird, instinctual thing of trying to cup my hands under Kiddo's mouth to catch the vomit (why do mothers do that? this was not the first or even the tenth time I personally have done that - it never works and just makes things messier. Seriously, parental instinct, lay the heck off or evolve or something!) Kiddo continued to vomit, so the nurse helped me get her off my lap, turned around and over the garbage can, where she heaved for a good five minutes. The nurse helpfully handed me a handful of those industrial, brown paper towels (you know, the ones that are about as absorbent as sealed granite) and then backed out of the room. I washed my hands off (thanks again, parental instinct) and fished my cell phone out of my purse, called Hubby and asked him to bring us each a change of clothes up to the doctor's office. Thankfully, he was there within ten-fifteen minutes, which unfortunately was enough time to allow my shirt and jeans to soak through, ditto my undies, so I was clammy and cold and basically marinated in all that had been burbling about in Kiddo's stomach for the past several hours.

Now, back in the day, Kiddo never could tell when she was about to vomit - it's part of her SPD. I've mentioned that before here because we had finally reached a point earlier this year where her body did recognize she was about to hurl. Alas, with the fever and the not feeling well, Kiddo just didn't feel it coming on today. A child with SPD can be more disregulated than usual when s/he is not feeling well, and that seems to be the case today.

So, the nurse came back in to let us know that the good news was that Kiddo's strep test was negative. She then went on to say it seems that Kiddo instead has "the stomach bug that is going around" - apparently Kiddo was only the second Exam Room Barfer of the morning, having been beaten to the punch by another little girl a half hour before. I inquired as to the nature of this stomach bug, because the one that swept through Kiddo's elementary school the week before last was a 24 hour, vomit only variety. "No, this is a different one. This one has a fever, two to three days of vomiting and then two to three days of diarrhea." (Ed note: I'm fairly certain I've lost any and all non-parent readers at this point. My apologies.) Oh, joy. Joy, joy, joy.

Hubby turned up with the clothes and got Kiddo redressed and bundled her off for home. I changed and mopped up as best I could and then headed out to the desk to check out, profusely apologizing for the Trail o' Vomit Kiddo sprayed across the exam room floor. When I got home, I headed straight for the shower, and not even a vigorous scrubbing under the hottest water has me feeling truly clean. Ew. Meanwhile, Hubby got Kiddo tucked in on the couch with a barf bucket and gave her some Motrin, and she's had a couple of Pedialyte popsicles that have stayed down for 2 hours now, so that's good. With her fever now lower thanks to the Motrin, Kiddo is seeming a lot better already than she did. A teensy part of me is hoping that the barfing was induced by the jabbing at the back of the throat required for the strep test, but there was a several minute time lapse between the jabbing and the barfing, so that is probably wishful thinking. I guess only time will tell... In the meantime, I'm now feeling slightly queasy and headachy myself. The only thing worse than ONE family member praying to the porcelain god is TWO. Blech. Mommies don't have time to be sick, dagnabit! I'm hoping it's just sympathy queasiness and I'm fine...

But I am glad it isn't strep like she had this spring, especially since ultimately developed into pneumonia and all... (Yeah, I didn't realize that strep could lead to pneumonia, but apparently it sometimes does.) So, happy it isn't that diagnosis, even if the "exploding from both ends" germs aren't the most fun.

I think I'm going to go curl up on the other couch and watch kids' movies with Kiddo for a while. It might be good to be in closer proximity to a barf bucket...

BLEARGH!!!

The first bout of strep

The kiddo is currently in the midst of a crisis-level bout of strep throat. It came on out of nowhere today. Things started out unextraordinairily enough - she woke up slightly earlier than normal (5:45 instead of 6-6:30ish) but was in good spirits, ate her full breakfast, etc. She went to school and at pick-up time, I got a good report from the teachers - nothing out of the ordinary at all.

In the hour after school, however, she went from being fine - telling me all about the life cycle of a butterfly (frogs and butterflies were the theme for preschool this week) - to limp, practically passing out with glazed eyes rolling back into her head, draped across me. She also went from cool as a cucumber to burning up in - I am not kidding or exaggerating here - less than ten minutes, and began complaining of a "bad" headache. We were not at home when this sudden change occurred, so I promptly bailed on our lunch date just as she was setting the food on the table, hauled the kiddo out to the car and headed for home. The twenty minutes it took me to get across town were the scariest twenty minutes I've had with the kiddo in a health-related situation since the time when she was an infant and spiked a high fever, resulting in a trip to the ER in the middle of the night. I debated going straight to the ER as I watched her in the rearview - her leg, where I could feel it when reaching back, just above the ankle, was so hot and she wasn't very responsive. I drilled her with questions, trying to ascertain her other symptoms. I seriously thought it could've been meningitis, and was trying hard not to let my mind race eighty steps ahead even as I broke every single speed limit between where we were and home. As soon as we pulled in, I carried her upstairs - she said she was too tired to walk - and took her temperature. 102.9. I was on the phone with our pediatrician's office even before I got the children's Motrin into her. Fortunately, their office is five minutes from our house, and with the luck of getting all green lights, I was carrying my feverish, dazed child into the waiting room three minutes after hanging up the phone. (The pediatrician's office is closer than the nearest hospital, which is why I brought her there.) Within half an hour of our arrival, we were on our way to the pharmacy, the doctor having diagnosed her with strep following a remarkably positive strep test, despite her not having any complaints of a sore throat. (Thank goodness these tests now take less than 3 minutes - I remember as a child, the cultures needed at least a day or two before the results could be determined.) We waited for the Keflex prescription to be filled, and as we waited the kiddo briefly rallied, most likely from the Motrin finally kicking in to lower her temp. The doctor's instructions were to give her a dose as soon as we got home, another before bed, then again in the morning and the hope was that with the three doses in her, we'd be all right to keep our plans to attend the circus with some friends tomorrow - plans we've had for almost two months and about which the kiddo has been mucho excited.

We got back home and I gave her the Keflex. This is only the third time she's ever had antibiotics in her almost-five years, and the first for this particular one. She hadn't eaten anything since snack at preschool (which featured a birthday cookie cake for one of her classmates) so I gave her a glass of juice to wash down the rather foul, sulfury-smelling medicine.

Not twenty minutes later, the vomiting began. The first bout brought up everything she had ingested since waking this morning. (I recognized various bits of curdled things as they poured over my hands, arms and into my lap...) But that wasn't the end of it. The kiddo proceeded to keep throwing up about every twenty minutes for the next five hours. After the first, massive heaving, I called the doctor again while the kiddo stood under the shower (we were both contaminated from hair to feet). I figured it was the Keflex that caused her to throw up, but he assured me it was actually the strep. Now, as a child, my one sister would hear the word "strep" and develop a raging case, but I don't recall her ever throwing up from it. It was a sore throat kinda thing - same thing holds true for the two times I ever had it myself. (I - knock on wood - seem to be fairly well immune to coming down with strep. Knocking wood again.) The doctor's advice was to wait 30 minutes for her stomach to settle, then to push some liquids, one tablespoon at a time, for an hour, and if they stayed down, give her the next dose of Keflex and Motrin at bedtime (7pm). Well, the vomiting continued and not a single drop of anything - not water, not Gatorade - was staying down for more than 20 minutes and then her fever started going up again, which really had both Hubby and I concerned. Back on the phone with the doctor's office. The doctor on call was neither our usual doctor (who was off today) nor the doctor we saw and then with whom I spoke earlier in the day. He was immediately concerned about dehydration, as Hubby and I had been. His instructions were to give her one tablespoon of Gatorade every five minutes, regardless of whether or not she threw it back up, for as long as she would stay awake. Once she was sleeping (at this point it was 7pm, though she was still awake and watching her zillionth episode of Word World of the night), he said to let her sleep. If the signs of dehydration worsened, we were to call him back and then head to the ER. Additionally, he recommended giving her some Tylenol to see if that would stay down and bring the fever down.

Well, we pushed the fluids as instructed, and Hubby ran out for children's Tylenol. He measured off a tablespoon and marked a cup for me, and every five minutes, the kiddo sipped another tablespoon. We got almost 8 ounces into her this way (and thanks to several more episodes of Word World - I think she saw every one on our extensive TiFaux list) before she asked to go to bed. Better still, she stopped vomiting by 8pm (knocking wood) and seemed much more comfortable with the Tylenol in her system. She went to sleep around 9:00, and now I'm just staying up until her next dose of Tylenol. We've got her door open so we can hear any telltale sounds of trouble, and I'm just hoping and praying that her stomach has settled and she'll sleep well tonight. The circus is obviously out for tomorrow. If the rest of the night goes well and we don't wind up in the ER, we'll try the Keflex again in the morning (per doctor's instructions) and hopefully knock this freaking strep out of her system.

I made the same mistake I always do whenever I'm told any diagnosis, either for myself or anyone in my family or friends. I hop on the computer and google it. Since my recollections about childhood strep were fuzzy at best and didn't affect me directly (the first time I ever had it myself, I was 19 years old), I wanted to refresh myself on the symptoms and treatments. Now, of course, I'm worrying that the kiddo will develop acute rheumatic fever and its accompanying heart conditions since we can't get the antibiotics into her and the strep onset was so sudden and severe... Ugh.

I am telling you - and all parents already know this, there is nothing scarier than a very sick child. The feeling of helplessness and powerlessness is unbearable and heartbreaking. I am so grateful that she is, for the moment, resting comfortably and that we are not on our way to the hospital. If this is how strep manifests itself in her, I fervently hope she never, ever gets it again.