holy sickness batman!

The kids are sick, again. I blame the weather (going from 80 degrees to 55, sunny to rainy all with crazy wind) and the fact that they are at the age where they interact with more kids. School, library story times, all equal more germs.

On Friday I had to take Peanut to our urgent care because his breathing was so labored and his doctors office couldn't squeeze him in for hours. They took one look at him and questioned whether he needed to be at the hospital. His chest was caving in when he breathed and he was miserable...and this was less than an hour after a breathing treatment. He had a cough and a slight fever. They swabbed him for RSV, then gave a breathing treatment that was a steriod, I believe. Whatever it was, it was a night and day difference. He was immediately better. So we were instructed to continue with the breathing treatments every four hours, plus an oral liquid steroid for 10 days and run a humidifer or vaporizer at night. Official diagnosis was Bronchitis. Again.

So by Friday night, he was doing amazingly better. Saturday morning he woke up with only a slight cough and no fever. Because B was leaving on Sunday (for work, 2 weeks, again) we wanted to try to do something with the kids. Hence visiting the Open house. He sat in his stroller the entire time and never once wheezed, let alone coughed. Other than a runny nose, he was/is healthy. He starts wheezing when he gets to hyped up but otherwise he's good. We're still doing the preventive treatments and the steriod, but overall he is doing better.

He is doing better, but Bubba...not so much. He woke up Sunday morning saying his tummy hurt. He had a slight fever so I gave him some Motrin and we hurried up and ran to the grocery store before he got worse. (B had already left). He did fine at the store but on the way home said that he didn't want to eat lunch, he just wanted to sleep. I bribed with Happy Meals; he said he wanted a Cheeseburger but when we got home refused to eat. Not a single bite or even one fry. He actually fell asleep on the sofa while his brothers ate.

After a three hour nap, he woke up not feeling much better. He did eat dinner like a champ and played a little bit while Papa was here but by bedtime he was miserable again. I gave some Motrin and he went to bed, at his request, by 7:28pm. I checked on all the kids at 10pm and he was burning up. I mean really hot to the touch, head sweating--the works. Checked him and his temp was 103.4. He was also complaining of his back and legs hurting "on the inside" I assumed bodyaches.

I immediately looked for Tylenol, knowing that I couldn't give him Motrin again yet and needed to alternate the two. No Tylenol. So I call nanaw and she sent Papa over with some. Meanwhile I finally convinced him to use the potty and to let me put a wet washcloth on his head (after he downright refused a luke-warm bath or laying in my room). Luckily after a dose of medicine and laying like that, his fever started going down. By midnight it was 99.9 so I crawled in bed to get some sleep. At 1am I woke up to him calling for me. He couldn't sleep, wanted more water and wanted to lay in my bed. So I obliged. He wanted to watch TV but at 1am there isn't a lot of kid shows on. Instead I let him watch an episode of Scooby Doo on my iPod. He fell back alseep less than half way through.

While I woke several times throughout the night (to use the restroom, check on him) he slept straight through. At 4am he woke wanting water and felt warm. After a drink, I gave him another dose of Tylenol and he fell right back asleep. He woke up at 7:30 feeling quite warm again...took his temp and it was back up to 102.6. More medicine and water. He's now resting on sofa while his brothers run around like crazies. He won't eat, not even a cracker, but did want water. I know he should pee again (he hasn't gone since 1am) but he is refusing to..saying he doesn't need to. I'm really trying to prevent him getting a UTI, so I'm gonna go convince him otherwise.

I just want them all to get better...I don't think that's too much to ask!

(ps..other than a runny nose pooks is perfectly healthy in all of this)