Still Sick

To my loyal blog readers...I am sorry.

I am sorry that post after post is about being sick.  Come ON, now.  This is boring.  Can we talk about something else?

Or have I really posted as much as I think about being sick?  Maybe we've been too busy BEING sick for me to blog much.  Maybe. I'm not even going to check.

Ok, doky.  Here's the excitement from the last few days.

Friday morning, Lydia came down at around 9:30 a.m. (yes, the big girls are sleeping in right now as it is vacation) and said, "I don't feel good, Mom."

Well, she's been sick for days but there was a tone in her voice that made me sit up and take notice.  Long story short, she was having major chest pains.

She's 13 and healthy but still, CHEST PAINS?  I called our pediatrician and of course the nurse said, "Take her to the ER!"  At some point, Lydia actually started crying from the pain and she is a very stoic child. This is the kid who broke her finger and we missed it because she didn't complain. This is the child who broke her wrist a year ago and commented that it "felt numb".  Next day we took her in and yes, it was broken. So crying from pain?  Scary!

Kevin was off work so of course he had the fun of taking her to the emergency room.  Thankfully, it was nothing serious.  She has chondroitis or something?  Her chest muscles were inflamed, likely from coughing and throwing up (both of which she had done in the last few days.)  AND she has a virus so probably the virus attacked that area with special vigor.

So the solution is ibuprofin and rest and no heavy lifting.

Yesterday Kevin woke up feeling awful and got worse through the day, with the particular symptom being an incredibly painful throat. After an afternoon nap, he said he thought it was probably strep throat and he took himself off to the Urgent Care.  And he is right. He has strep throat. Which is very contagious.  And we have 9 kids.  So far I'm Ok.  My throat is fine.  Lydia's throat was bad last night so we are guessing she has strep also.

Sarah and Daniel are both sick though not horribly ill. Sarah is a rather "shrieking" child on the best of days, and she is freaked about a runny nose. She is walking around with a Kleenex stuck against her nose at all times.  She is even more uptight about life than usual.  Daniel has actually been, well, Daniel -- but he is taking naps regularly, which is nice.

I am hanging on. I've been falling asleep on the couch or in a recliner the last couple of evenings because I'm tired.  Our dishwasher is still out so I've got that task and we've had so much illness.

Broken record again, though -- when I think of my two friends named Sarah -- well, maybe I haven't mentioned the second one.  Both Sarahs are young widows with kids at home.  When I think of what they are enduring, the grief and exhaustion and pain and sorrow and mourning and frustration and grief -- I know I need to be relaxed about the little struggles in our lives.