What's that you say? Sickness Saga...

So I posted a week ago about how the sickness had returned.  If I had only known the force of what was still ahead.

We finally got the boys on antibiotics long enough to get them well enough to go back to school (Gabriel has Strep and Michael both Strep and Ear Infection) but as the early week went on Madelyn and I got worse... way worse.  And then there was Isabelle who had never really gotten better but never complained about a sore throat, or ache ears.  She just had yucky (and I mean a yucky) stuffed nose.  So much so that she had a sore in her nose from wiping it so much.

On Thursday I decided enough was enough and made an appointment for her and I to go to the doctor.  When I showed up to go to get medication, it turned out the clinic was closed, as their providers were sick.  Awesome.  I decided I could wait a day (wrong decision).

I ended up getting Isabelle to the doctor and while I was there, her pediatrician said, "You better get yourself to the doctor you sound terrible."  I knew it was getting worse, stupidly I thought, I can wait til the morning.

Isabelle was diagnosed with sinus infection and some sort of infection in her nose caused by the yuckiness going on inside her head.  We left with 2 prescriptions.

In the middle of the night, after going to bed with my throat feeling like it was on fire, I woke up to my ear throbbing in pain.  It WAS terrible!  I took some Tylenol and tried to back to sleep.  By 3:30 it was almost unbearable... feeling my heart beat through my ear and the pressure like a tea kettle about to scream.

When it was time to finally get the kids up, I held my head in throbbing pain, woke them up, asked Jarrett to help me get the dog to the groomer (because of course I would have made an appointment for him to be seen at 7 am).  My head was hurting so badly, my balance was thrown off and I felt dizzy.  My legs were shaking in pain (even though I had taken 600 mg of ibuprofen) just an hour before and I told the kids, don't talk, don't make any noise as we drove to school.

Of course this would be the morning Gabriel would forget not only his baseball stuff in the back of dad's car which was now downtown, but also he'd forget his school backpack at home (after we left) and it wasn't until we got to Michael's school he realized he forgot his backpack too!  SERIOUSLY CHILDREN! Of all days.  I wanted to scream but knew it would just make my pain worse.  So I just pushed the door of the van to open and motioned for them to get out.

Gabriel was embarrassed riding in the car with me, but I think he felt sorry enough that he didn't make a comment.  He whispered if I could just drop him off for school a block early so the kids didn't seem him.  I obliged.  

I drove Isabelle, Madelyn and I to not one, or two but three different urgent care places, til I found one that was open and thank GOD only one other patient was ahead of us.  I was out of my mind in pain, so much so I told Jarrett it was almost as bad as labor. My legs were shaking out of my control in pain and I was doing the breathing exercises while I tried to tell myself to calm down.

Horrible.   The lady at the front counter saw me pacing back and forth and got the nurse to call us back.  They took Isabelle's vitals...
Oh about her... that evening after I had taken her to the doctor, I was getting her showered an ready for bed when I saw she had several red welts on her body.  They instantly reminded me of MRSA Michael had when he first came to us.  I was worried. I thought. oh no, that's definitely not something we need.  I decided to keep her home from school... washed everything she touched on sanitary that night and took her with me to the doctor before seeing if she was contagious too.

Back at the doctors they took us back.  Took our vitals and the lady said, "I'll have the doctor come right back."  By this point I was crying, again it was out of my control, the pain was TERRIBLE.  Soon the doctor came in and said, Hi I'm (don't even remember her name) and what seems to be the trouble today.  Before I could even respond, she looked at me and said, "Mom, let's look at you, you seem to be in some serious pain."  I hopped up on the table like I was 6 again and I explained how my throat hurt, I felt miserable and my ear pain was killing me.  I think I might have ear infection and  said, "I feel like I'm dying my ear hurts so much."  She first looked in my left ear which didn't hurt at all and then she came around the other side.  Touched the top of my right ear to pull it back, put her light scope in and she said Oh you have a raging ear infection and oops....

Instantly the pressure got better.  For a moment I felt relief.  Awe that's so much better... and then I felt warm liquid running down my ear and my neck.  She said, "I'm sorry your ear drum just ruptured."  I turned my head to the right side, you know that feeling when you have water in your ear after swimming and you turn you head to shake it out.  I did the same.  And then all of my hearing in my right ear was gone.  Nothing but ringing and a constant feeling of pain and fullness.  She gave me a cotton ball to put in my ear and then went to listen to my breathing.  She said, you are definitely wheezing and are not filling your lungs like you should.  You have the start of pneumonia too. She said, one moment, let me step out to see if your Strep Test came back positive.

She was gone and then came back in.  Congrats you have that too.  I'm seriously a walking petri-dish of bacteria, virus and sickness.

And then it was Isabelle's turn. I explained Isabelle was on antibiotics for a sinus infection and that I had just noticed the welts spreading last night.  She explained to my relief that it wasn't MRSA like I thought and they originally suspected, but that it was a type of staph infection because her immune system was probably compromised, it probably was able to take over.  So more prescriptions and creams for her.

The lady sent our prescriptions and off we headed to the pharmacy at Fry's to pick up our loot.  On the way there I listed to Madelyn cough, wheeze and sneeze behind me in her car seat.  When I picked her up she felt warm too. I couldn't decide if it was because it is already in the flipping 90's here or if it is because she was feeling crappy too.

I walked into Fry's, saw that their minute clinic was open and decided, "Heck, I might have well make it a triple play today and take her too.  So I signed her up, got her and low and behold she had a double ear infection too!  What a trooper, girlfriend never complains!

...

Except she was wanting to be held an awful lot and slept more than normal.

The doctor also said she was wheezy and we needed to resume breathing treatments for her every 4 hours.  Awesome!  Because I really don't have anything else to do every 4 hours (other than distribute every other child's medication) so sign me up! 

I'm honestly joking, if it makes her better, I'm happy to do it.  But I might not be joking that it sure would be nice if we didn't ALL have to be sick ALL at the same time.

Thankfully Madelyn thinks her breathing treatments are a game and she's pretty good now about taking her medication, especially if I turn on Frozen.

So that's how we rolled this weekend.  All bundled up in our house, going through Kleenex boxes like they are poker chips in Las Vegas, bleach wipes like water, and medication like...

Well just take a look below.  This is currently just the prescription medications the kids and I are on. 

It was a a great weekend for Dad to be gone.  He's the only one who hopefully will escape this plague.  So far he's okay, but I'm not making any promises.

It's been interesting this weekend at our house since I'm literally unable to hear anything out of my right ear.  The kids talk and I have to say, "WHAT?" almost every single time.  And then there's been a few times when I've been talking to the kids and Gabriel will say, "Mom you're shouting, you don't have to talk that loud."  It's awesome.  NOT.  I just hope after all this my hearing comes back.  The doctor told me there's a chance it won't and even a possibility I'd have to have surgery to repair it.  Fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

 I'm headed back to the doctor tomorrow as it turns out the antibiotic I'm on doesn't seem to be doing anything.  The pus oozing from my ear is getting worse, the pain unchanged (seriously I'm counting down the minutes on the clock til I can take my next dose of meds).  Here's hoping this week is healthier for all of us.  We could really use a few nights of pain-free sleep.

(Update- decided to wait to post this till I got back.  My suspicions were right. The antiobiotic last week prescribed did nothing, but now the infection is  worse.  Having spread down into my neck and into my jaw- no wonder everything  hurts.  The drainage from my ear is constant and looks like something you'd see on a lake infected with toxic waste (YUCKY).  I go back tomorrow to see if the new medication is working (please pray it is), plus they want to do a hearing test to see how much damaged has been caused (I can already tell them- I literally only hear ringing out of my right ear-nothing else) and then again on Thursday to make sure the infection is getting under control.  I don't want to think they were alarmed by what they saw today but the doctor did say, "Wow this is definitely worse than I suspected it to be".  That's never a good thing to  hear. 

Prayers please- that they can get this infection under control and that the damage  to my ear can heal to my hearing can return.  Never realized I how much I took my hearing for granted.

Until next time, back to the infirmary,

Angie