Illness and more illness. Ick.

Not much to report here. I'm feeling much better, but not 100% yet. I've spent the last week getting caught up on all my house cleaning duties. (I still need to vacuum.) SuperDad was sick for about a week, and the Princess, who had strep throat and ran a fever for a week before that, has been back to school for nearly two weeks. The Tiny Man is coughing, but not too bad. Big Brother, though, has had the bark-y cough for several days now. I got a call from the school this morning... he was running a fever of 101, so Grandma went and picked him up for me and brought him home (thank you again, Mom!). His temperature has come down a little, but not quite below 100, so he's resting on the couch right now. He said he was hungry, so I made lunch an hour ago, but he ate very little. I'm hoping his fever comes down and that he gets better quickly and that we don't have a repeat of the Princess' illness. We're going to keep an eye on him and if he starts having the same fever spikes that she did, we'll be taking him to the doctor, too.

And I just realized I never posted about the Princess' illness, so here you go...

When the Princess first got sick, it was a Wednesday evening (Feb. 4). She ate dinner and went right to bed, saying she didn't feel well. I put the boys to bed a little while later and took a shower (I was still pretty sick at that time). When I got out of the shower, I went and checked on her and she was groaning and flopping all around, so based on her body language, I knew she was going to be sick. I took her to the restroom and well, I was right. So we put her on the couch afterward and she felt hot, so I checked and she was running a fever. On a whim, I checked myself and I was also running a fever. Wonderful. So I slept in the recliner that night to keep an eye on her (and also so I could breathe easily). Her temperature spiked several times over the next few days, so she spent a considerable amount of time taking cool baths or showers. SuperDad took over night duty that weekend, sleeping in the living room, and by Monday morning, we were frustrated and at a loss for what to do. We'd tried everything we could think of to bring her fever down and nothing worked. Other than that one bout of vomit, she had no other symptoms, so we were totally confused. I took her to the doctor on Monday (Feb. 9), and she tested positive for strep. The doctor gave us the choice between liquid antibiotics over the course of several days, or a shot. The Princess chose the shot! She was very brave, but it was a shot in the hiney, after all, so she ended up very unhappy for a while. Her fever finally broke late that night and was gone all the next day (Tuesday, the 10th), but jumped back up again late Tuesday night, so we kept her home on Wednesday, too. She finally went back to school on Thursday, Feb. 12. By that time, the horrible chest congestion I'd been fighting was going away, but I still felt like I'd been hit by a truck, so we spent Valentine's weekend at home, being as restful as possible. On Monday, the 16th, when I posted last, I was feeling better and SuperDad was on his way home, sick with what we're pretty sure was the flu. He missed the next day of work, but had to go back on Wednesday, even though he was still feeling pretty bad. He's feeling better now, but it's been slow going for all of us here, fighting off illness. The kids' school has had many kids out with strep, the flu, and another stomach virus.

And now I have a splitting headache, so I'm going to go try to convince the Tiny Man that he needs a nap so we can all rest quietly. We'll see how well that works out. :)