‘Tis the Season to be … Diseasin’

My children have been on break since last weekend. Our time off started with a nasty upper-respiratory infection and they spent most of the week lying on the couch playing Plants vs. Zombies and ilomilo on the xBox. The boy child got it too and had a fever, which meant that he was… you guessed it … up all night long for a week, crying, coughing & nursing. I finally succumbed on Wednesday and felt terrible by Saturday (of course). But Santa can’t sleep, so we went on with the show. 

The good news is the girls and boy had an awesome Christmas. And they are at 95-100%.

And after fighting the urge to vomit first thing Christmas morning, I was much better, too.

During dinner on Sunday, my ear became plugged up. Getting over a cold, I paid it no mind. But by the time we were driving home, it turned to pressure and then to intense pain. Long story short: I gave up the fight around 4:30 AM and resigned to go to immediate care. Of course I had unknowingly left my wallet in the car, so there D & I were, in the middle of our Christmas wreckage, frantically searching for it. Did I mention the boy was screaming bloody murder? Yep, there was that, too. I was perilously close to tears.

Eventually I made it, and the Doctor said ‘wow’ and told me he could give me Tylenol on the spot. When I mentioned I had taken 400mg of ibuprofen he reminded me I could take up to 800mg at once. I had my Amoxicilin & took it at 6AM, with 600mg of ibuprofen. At 8, the boy woke back up briefly, grabbed my arm and dozed back off. It was then I noticed my palms felt itchy. It was weird. I got up to go see, but there was nothing yet. My neck started to itch. I woke D up.

Within 20 minutes I was covered in fire-red hives. And D was out getting me Benadryl. My face was red. My whole trunk was red. And the ear thing made it hard to tell if my throat was acting up or what. So, back to the immediate care I went. The wait was a little longer this time and gave the Benadryl an opportunity to settle in. My hives disappeared and I was filled with the urge to lie on the little gurney and go to sleep.

The Doctor said it was odd, since I have taken Amoxicillin and Motrin since childhood. He said maybe it was some inert ingredient in the brand of pill. Either way, I’ll be making an appointment with an allergist in early 2012. I do not want to go through that again.

Now I am up in bed feeling like hell. Darin has been taking care of the kids and washing dishes, giving the boy a sippy of formula and making me Ramen noodles. He’s a good man.

This isn’t how I pictured winter break to be. But the most important part was already mentioned above – the kids had an awesome Christmas. Aside from all this, mine wasn’t too bad ,either.

I’ll catch up with everyone in a few days.