a tale of five sickies...

the past couple of weeks have been interesting to say the least. strep throat hit our house with a vengeance i have never seen before. this is no exaggeration because i have truly only had strep throat one other time...and that was a couple of years ago.

harper came home from school a couple of weeks ago with a note saying that there was one confirmed case of strep in her class. i didn't think too much of it because for the most part our family stays mostly healthy. the next day harper started complaining of a sore throat. i watched her closely and took her temp. but she recovered quickly and went about her life.

the next day calvary started complaining of his throat hurting. i remember it like it was yesterday because the minute calvary starts complaining about not feeling well i buckle down for an excruciating journey to health. it was saturday the 23rd. i immediately started praying that this would be short lived and that we would not have a repeat of the horrible hand foot and mouth outbreak of 2009. i really didn't think much about the strep because harper didn't have it, so i just thought it was a little drainage from a cold. everything with a child with spd is a bit more dramatic so i didn't shock me that calvary would not eat or drink. it also didn't shock me that he refused to swallow. he just held spit in his mouth until he would either spit it in the toilet, towel, or trashcan. thankfully he did handle himself much better than he did last year and i could convince him to drink enough to stay hydrated and take medicine. much to his own dismay, by thursday i knew that we needed to go to the doctor. i made an appointment and took him in. without question he had strep. the nurse came in and said that he was going to need the shot. i told her that she better get another nurse. dr. walker came in and as she walked toward calvary he managed to swing and hit her in the face twice before i could wrangle his arms down by his side. awesome. she took it all in stride and she helped hold down his upper body while i held down his lower body and the nurse grabbed his little hips to try and give him the shot. it took 5 minutes of wrestling before we could get him still enough to make the plunge. he was shouting, "you're choking me! you're choking me!" and i felt so badly for him because i know that he genuinely did feel that we were choking him. the nurse tried to make amends with him by offering him a sucker to which he replied with slapping the gift to the ground.

in the mean time, jack just watched in pure horror.

the shot worked wonders and by saturday calvary was feeling 100%. however, that's the day that oliver jack started to go down. by sunday night he was miserable. he woke up from his sleep and was just restless and unhappy. he never wakes up in the middle of the night so i knew that he was miserable. the next day he was so miserable that he would just sit on the couch and not move. this is monumental in the world of oliver jack. he NEVER stops. the fact that he climbed up on the couch and fell asleep was my cue to call the doctor.

after i got home with him, both kyle and i started feeling sick. by wednesday both of us were running fevers and feeling miserable. wednesday was also the day that harper started feeling sick.

kyle's mom graciously brought us dinner on wednesday which was so comforting. all i wanted to do was lay on the couch and sleep.

even today we are all on the mend. jack is still whiny and not quite himself. harper is exhausted from fighting off the virus. kyle is still complaining of a sore throat. and i am just beginning to remember the sound of my own voice.

only finley rose rises above it all.