Bleh....

I've had a house of sickies. It has been one of those things that has not been especially severe, but which has seemed to drag on forever!!

"A" came home with a fever 2 weeks ago. Since then, all 3 girls have had cold symptoms. Occasionally a low-grade fever, but overall have felt pretty good. A bit of coughing here, a sore throat there, a general "ucky" feeling here. "M" hasn't missed any school from it yet. "A" only missed a day...and then there is "E".

She has had cold symptoms for a week or so, but nothing severe. Then out of the blue on Sunday night (early morning Monday, actually) she came to my room - which she NEVER does - and work me up to say she had a tummy ache and felt like she was going to barf. I took her temp and it was 103.5. I still wonder if that reading was right...but anyway, she did have a fever. I gave her ibuprofen and a barf bowel and put her to bed on the couch in my room. She woke up feeling a lot better, but I didn't dare send her to school because of the fever a few hours before. She did run a low-grade fever through the day.

Long story short - all week she has had periods where she feels just fine, and other times where she feels like crud. On Tuesday, her ear really started to bother her (not uncommon for her, if her tubes are out) so I took her in to the doctor. Our normal doc wasn't there (she only works a day or two a week and alternate weekends) so we saw one of the partners. He gave her an antibiotic for the ear infection and said she'd probably had swine flu, but he wasn't going to worry about testing for it because the symptoms match and that's what everyone has right now.

Yesterday, she had a pretty good day other than she'd complain about her ear feeling clogged (the tubes are out again, by the way). No fever. Went to bed thinking she'd be back in school today.

....Then...the coughing started. A really yucky, hacking cough. I heard it occasionally through the night, and then this morning she felt warm to me so I took her temp and it was again up over 100. I started to get very nervous considering twice before she has had similar circumstances and ended up with pneumonia. I had Doug give her a blessing and we decided to take her back to the doctor.

The same doctor saw her, and by the time we got there (after ibuprofen and a breathing treatment) he said she looked fine and kind of like "why did you bring her in?". I told him about her history and he still looked at me like I was an idiot. He could hear no strange things in her lungs, of course no fever right then...blah blah blah. So, he said, "well, we can do this two ways. Either I'll give her zithromax which will treat the pneumonia if it's starting, or we can take x-rays and go from there." I told him that I would trust his judgement and if he didn't think she had pneumonia, we would just go home and I would watch her to see if her breathing became labored or anything. He kind of just stood up and looked at me weird and then said, "I'll order an x-ray" and promptly threw open the door and slammed it behind him. I'm not kidding! I almost started to laugh because I could not believe he was throwing this little hissy fit over seeing a kid whose mom might be a little paranoid but proactive, you know?? So then I heard him say something to the nurse, "Chest x-ray. There is no pneumonia" I went out (by that time he was gone) and told the nurse not to worry about it, that if he didn't think there was a concern we'd just go...and she was really nice and said, "let's go ahead and do them, the antibiotic she was on should have taken the fever away so it's not unreasonable to check for that."

Well, of course after waiting forever, we got the x-rays done and they were clear. We were told that she looks great and there is nothing to worry about. I'm glad the films were clear, but what a *fun* experience we had!

So, ever since then, her fever keeps going up and up...I don't know what to think. When I took it right before dinner it was 102.7.

I've also been looking for new doctors. I have a few recommendations from friends, and one of them is actually in our insurance system so I think we're switching! I know doctors are under a lot of pressure right now with everyone so sick from swine flu, but you don't really need to treat me like I'm clueless.

Back to that same old - if you wait to take them in, you get an annoyed doctor who tells you you should have done it earlier. If you take them in when you have a hunch and are trying to be proactive, you get it then too. No way to win.

Keep E in your prayers. From others who have been battling this illness, it sounds like tonight might be the night she turns the corner and feels better. Here's hoping!