Diseased

Please forgive the rant in advance, but this day is not happening. Not without some documentation.

As I type this the smell of Lysol is in the air and my fingers are cracking from the loads of hand sanitizer that I've slathered over them. Today is one of those days that I dread all year long. Here's the background:

On Monday (one week, one day ago), Cole woke up seemingly well, but half an hour later was grabbing his head in pain, howling, complaining of an earache. Two hours later at the doctor, his first ear infection is confirmed.

Both big kids went to school the next day, Tuesday, none the worse for wear -- I mean, we had our usual runny nose that lasts from September to March, but nothing remarkable.

On Wednesday morning Annemarie woke up with a mystery fever (almost 102) but no symptoms. So she was home with me and Micah, and we ran errands. Even less work done than usual.

On Thursday night Cole went to bed seemingly fine, but woke in the middle of the night vomiting. His fever was also about 102. I was suspicious that this was an ear infection refusing to resolve, rather than the stomach flu, since he kept saying that his stomach never really hurt.

Friday AM -- exactly 24 hours before his birthday party -- the fever is gone, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief, feeling like we can have this party in good conscience. That night after he runs around it's up to 100, but hey -- it's not the 100.3. His nose and Annemarie's noses are running like sieves. I'm considering strapping a bucket under their chins at this point.

By Saturday morning, the day of the party, everyone is seemingly well. This is wonderful, and we have a great party. I don't worry about infecting the masses for a moment. But that night, Cole's eyes start weeping like he's got pink eye.

By the next morning, Sunday, Cole's nose is like a garden hose, his eyes are flowing all sorts of junk, and he feels awful. Just in time for our family's dedication at church. We stood up there with Cole looking like we'd just hit him in the eyes before we got there. Sunday night Annemarie's eyes joined Cole's, and Cole's started to back off a bit.

By Monday morning they both are still goopy eyed, so we skip ballet and gymnastics, our two fun things to do on Monday mornings. I call the doctor that AM to confirm the differences between pink eye and eye drainage from a cold -- we seem to have the latter (shew!). I experience false security. After a day of mayhem and his nap, Cole awakens with red spots all over his body. I call the doctor again, and they tell me to suspect an allergy to the antibiotic, to start some benadryl, and to call them the next AM to report back.

By this morning -- Tuesday -- Cole is absolutely, positively, 100% covered in red spots. They are on his scalp, his eyelids, his feet, in between his fingers. And they're not terribly itchy, but they are irritating enough that he has the urge to claw at them. I call the doctor, who wants to see him, and discover that he has some sort of viral rash AND that his ear infection never resolved AND that his other ear is now infected. As we're leaving, I notice that Micah's eyes are beginning to ooze junk.

By the time Brian and I rearrange our lives to get Cole to the doctor and Annemarie to school, then Annemarie picked up from school, Micah's eye is so terrible that it's swollen shut. And he seems to be miserable. Everyone goes down for a nap, and for a moment I have the sense that we might be over the worst of it.

Then Annemarie wakes up, and I sense that she's acting strangely. I can't quite pinpoint it. She insists that she feels fine, but not 10 seconds after saying that, starts puking everywhere. The WORST ILLNESS OF ALL! in my opinion. So after I clean everything/one up, spray everything down with Lysol, second guess what i've touched, and spray again (emptying the can), I give my "please tell me when you feel bad! WHy didn't you tell me?" lecture, to which she responds, "I was afraid you'd be mad."

WHAT? ME? MAD? Crazy, maybe. Mad, no.

After I explain that I could not possibly be mad over something like illness, I go into why that sort of information sharing is important -- so that we don't kiss people who are sick, so that we don't eat after them, etc. Then her eyes well up and her lip quivers, and she reminds me that I kissed her right before she took her nap. "Momma, I still need kisses even when I'm sick."

The motherly knife of guilt twists in my heart.

All this, and it now appears that I will have to miss my own doctor's appointment tomorrow for the almost certain ear infection that I have, which has persisted much too long.

Thank you for attending my pity party. I will attempt to come up with crafty, handmade party favors once my cracked and bleeding hands recover.


11-19-08
UPDATE! I ended up making it to the doctor after all today. I was told that I needed to have my eyes checked, that there's chronic fluid behind my ears, that I also have chronic vertigo. Oh yeah, and that the light I've been seeing is the recurrence of my migraine auras. So while Annemarie and Cole are feeling much, much better, their mother is dizzy and blind -- and thanks to her overconsumption of coffee, is slightly dehydrated. And Micah, bless his heart, has super oozy eye and appears to feel like a squished bug. There's nothing like having your infant son smile at you when you enter his room, peering at you through the slits of his eyes that manage to barely open despite the matted mucus that sticks them together.......