It's been a few days since my last post due to sick children and major Christmas preparations. Doug's mom is flying in on Tuesday, and while my huge to do list before Barbara arrives has been modified several times we made one last push on Saturday to get a few more things checked off the list before we abandoned the list entirely. But we are excited to have family here!
I carpool with another mom in the neighborhood for
pre-school. The other mom brought Porter home on Thursday afternoon. Porter seemed happy and healthy, begging to have his classmate stay and play, but immediately after walking in the door, he headed to the couch, laid down and said he didn't feel well. He was running a fever and complaining that his stomach hurt. He slept for a while, in the meantime a napless Sophia was melting down tugging at her ears. I thought, oh great, she's sick too! But after a nap she seemed happy and healthy again. After the Motrin kicked in Porter seemed to be doing better too, although he had lost his appetite.
I thought maybe he could kick what ever but he had, until after his Friday afternoon nap. He woke up crying, holding his throat, and very feverish. My mother's intuition told me, take this child to the doctor, I bet he has strep throat. I am so grateful that my doctor's office was willing to squeeze me in at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon. They told me to come right on over.
The doctor confirmed my suspicions, gave Porter a big old shot in his bottom...OUCH! Making me feel terribly guilty, because before going I promised him they wouldn't be giving him a shot, I assumed he would have an oral antibiotic. The nurse told me it was a nasty shot. The receptionist let Porter take three stickers instead of one, because it was a particularly painful shot... a three sticker shot! I asked if they would give Sophia a
prescription over the phone, if she came down with the symptoms. They said, no, they would have to do a culture, but they could do a culture on her right then. I happily agreed to that, her test came back negative, but her ears showed that she did indeed have an ear infection... so that shot didn't spare us a 10 day run of
antibiotics after all! But at least, if she does come down with strep, the
antibiotic they gave me covers both things.
I am grateful for the mother's intuition that says to me, this kid is sick, take him in! I feel like I still have a long ways to go in totally discerning it. Sometimes I
hesitate or question it, but the more illnesses I see, the better I think I am becoming at distinguishing between which ones need professional care and which ones will take care of themselves. I hate it when my kids are sick, it worries me so much. I often think, why didn't I got into nursing! Or why can't I talk one of my brothers into going into medicine. It's so hard to learn the world of medicine through trial and error! But at least we have the spirit to help guide us in the nursing of our sick children! I always worry about the germs, especially at this time of hear, that are found in the doctor's office. I feel I have to weigh the risk/benefit of taking a sick child in to a potentially sicker environment. This time, we made the right choice... and both kids are feeling much better!
Perhaps this should have been my first clue that Porter was coming down with something. He fell asleep at the table at 6pm while waiting for me to finish dinner!
