Thursday's Doings

I haven't been posting about us being sick again, because I just CAN'T HANDLE IT. But we are. The girls and I. Sweet Pea, of course, is getting the brunt of it. Seems it always happens that way.

We had been playing every day with our neighbors for four days or so before I found out that one of their kids had been sick that whole time. When the younger one got sick I became aware of the situation and of course by then we'd been well exposed and that same day Sweet Pea already had awakened with a sore throat, which turned into the cold we've got now.

Unfortunately Sweet Pea got a cough a couple days ago that started sounding increasingly like the one she had when she was diagnosed with walking pneumonia and yesterday she was completely exhausted when I picked her up from school, so this morning I took her to the doctor before school. She has either walking pneumonia again, or the doctor said it could alternatively be a virus. Either way, Sweet Pea's lungs don't sound right; she is getting plenty of oxygen, but she is also wheezing. So, immediately upon leaving the doctor's office we went to the pharmacy, then grabbed some lunch at Jamba Juice (hee hee, nothing wrong with a special treat to cheer us up after a sucky diagnosis), and before taking Sweet Pea into her classroom I gave her her first dose of antibiotics and albuterol. I'm not the least bit excited about medicating her so much again, but what can I do? I sure as heck don't want her to get full-blown pneumonia, and the doctor prescribed the albuterol to help her breathe better and cough less. I figured that since she'd be running around at school I'd better give her the stuff that will help her breathing and coughing.

We had an appointment for Sweet Pea to get her kindergarten shots tomorrow morning but I asked the doctor her opinion on that, and she said we could if we wanted, but if we could wait another week that might be better. So I rescheduled those for June 4th. Sweet Pea is excited to have a week's reprieve.

Unless Sweet Pea's cough is drastically better and there are no other symptoms or backsliding, we are to take her back to the doctor on Monday so they can listen to her lungs again and see how much progress she has made on the medicine. If her lungs sound the same or worse or she has other symptoms, they will probably do a chest x-ray to see if she has pneumonia, and possibly also do whatever tests there are to check for asthma.

There truly are no words to describe how distraught I am about us being sick again, especially since Sweet Pea's cold progressed so quickly beyond a cold. The Bug and I have the cold as well, but I am only coughing a little and The Bug is not coughing at all, and *I think* we are getting over it. I just CANNOT HANDLE the reality of more illness in the house. I feel like my head is going to explode. We've had so much more than our share (according to my measure, of course) of illness over the past 6 months. It has just GOT to stop. I told Slipshod this morning that if I didn't know I'd go batshit crazy without friends and actually leaving the house, I'd just keep the girls home all summer and not see anyone, for fear of them getting sick again.

Hopefully this will be it for a while. Hopefully the weather will continue to warm up and then stay that way instead of going from Africa hot straight back to winter temperatures and rain. Maybe THAT will allow us to move on like we should with the seasons and be well for a while. Here's hoping.