Influenza A, subtype H3

I did a big blog update Sunday night thinking I was nearing the end of my sickness.  I spent Saturday night into Sunday coughing and miserably awake.  I thought surely that was the end of sickness.  However around 3AM Jim woke me up and said "I need you to come take Lilly's temperature."  I knew immediately that it was not good, because Jim is perfectly capable of taking a temperature.  I took her temp and it registered 106, I took it again and it came up 105.8, and then 106 again.  She was burning up and completely miserable and slightly delusional.  I gave her Tylenol right away and sent Jim to the grocery store to buy another thermometer, because surely there is no way her fever was that high.  He came back with two more thermometers and her fever was indeed that high. We debated taking her into the emergency room immediately and then we remembered when Jack had a fever of 105 the advice nurse told us to give him a warm bath and rotate meds.  That is what we did and her fever slowly started coming down, by 7AM it was 101.  Poor girl was singing songs and humming to herself like a mad person.  She was jabbering on about the clothing store Justice and a funny shirt she saw there, meanwhile we were trying to remain calm as we checked her temp every 20 minutes until I finally had her come to sleep in bed with me so I could monitor her more closely.

I knew immediately it was the flu and I knew that what I had was the flu too, despite the stupid doctors. My two little nephews, whom we had just seen the week before, were diagnosed with influenza A, and we had been exposed.  I took Lilly into our clinic and she was so sick she couldn't even walk.  I carried her everywhere.

Her hair was crazy from her 4am bath and then to bed without a good brushing because she was in so much pain, and I did try to brush it for her but she was so miserable that we let all personal care and grooming fall to the side to leave the house. Poor baby.

Our hospital is a teaching hospital and when you call in for a last minute sick appointment they torture you by making you see the medical student, then the resident, and then if you're lucky you see an actual doctor.  I found out later that you can insist on going straight to the doctor, which had I known that I would have done that.  My poor baby had to be examined by the incompetent med students and then completely condescending resident.  Then the attending came in and they all talked down to me and told me that parents really overreact to high fevers and she actually said to me "106 fever isn't going to cook her brain."  I told her I clearly wasn't worried about that nor was I overreacting because I didn't rush her to the ER at 3AM.  I took care of her home and then brought her into the clinic.  I could tell none of them believed me about the flu because at that point in time she had no other symptoms.  They tested her for strep throat which was unnecessary and cruel and I should have fought them.

In the end they tested her for strep, flu, and a few other respiratory diseases.  The flu test is horrendous, they stick a tube up and down your nose and poor Lilly cried a lot which made me cry.  She never cries at the doctor's office and is always very brave, it just absolutely broke my heart.  I cried the same way I did during the first time she had to get shots as a new baby.

 I found out later in the day that she tested positive for Influenza A, subtype H3, which is the strain of flu that is out-breaking all over and the results were reported to the PA department of health.  I found myself quite vindicated and secretly wishing that those stupid doctors, who didn't wash their hands with soap, only anti-bacterial gel, all caught the influenza A since they doubted me.  Of course I immediately regretted that hateful thought and vowed to never repeat it out loud.  Except for on my blog, for all to read.

Here we are on Wednesday night still sick.  I am still exhausted and achy and Lilly, who I thought was doing better, spiked a 103.7 fever out of the blue this afternoon.  She is actually developing more flu symptoms as the week goes on.  Jim and Jack are still holding strong, so we'll see what happens.  I just hope Lilly can go back to school next week and that I might be able to leave my house again.  At least in time for her 7th birthday which is next Wednesday.  This is not the year of good health for us, we had a similar year of sickness 2010-2011.  I guess we're lucky if we have one year on and one year off.

In the mean time poor Jack has been cooped up in the house with us.  I tried to take him outside yesterday morning but it was too cold, he even layered up on hats.  I think he has really enjoyed hours and hours of movies and iPad time since no one is well enough to actively play with him.

We had two really great friends surprise us with dinner Monday and Tuesday night, and many people have offered to run errands for us.  I was so grateful for the meals because poor Jim is in school, working, and trying to do dishes and laundry for a sick house.  We had been surviving on frozen pizza and french fries and a real meal was so delicious.  We have watched movies and shows together and despite all the sickness and misery it's been nice to spend time with my children with zero interactions from the outside world.  No where to go, no one coming over, no friends, just us and the movies.  I might be losing my mind a tad, but it has been a little enjoyable to just be home and take care of ourselves for a full week with nothing else to do other than get better.

That's all for now from our house of sick, hopefully all will be better soon.

Snow days

We had a few days of snow which made for great sledding.  Luckily Jack and Lilly received some new saucers for Christmas and were able to take advantage of them.  The snow days fell over Christmas vacation and in between sicknesses so we were really able to enjoy the snow play.  Of course at the end of the day after being outside for 2 hours Lilly admitted that she had played with wet socks for 2 hours and she ended up at the doctor for frost nip, which is the lesser degree of frost bite.

As a result I ordered high tech wool socks, snow gloves that come to your elbows, and snow pants for me.  Of course it was in the 50's this weekend, I really hope we get at least one more snow day to use all our new snow apparel.

My kids figured out that sledding is a lot of work when you go to the big hills.  You know what's more work?  Sledding when you're 6 months pregnant and carrying your 3 year old back up the hill.  I continue to post extremely unflattering pictures of me with my children so they remember that I was there with them.

New Year's Eve

We had a party at our house on New Year's Eve with some of our friends.  The party started at 8PM and Jack was asleep by 7PM and never had any clue that we had fireworks, glow sticks, tons of food and fun.

The kids are getting bundled  up to go out for fireworks in the snow.

The kids all cozied up for Dolphin Tale after fireworks while the grown ups talked and played a super fun round of Quelf, a hilarious board game.

Then we foolishly passed out noise makers to the children 3 minutes before the ball dropped.  They were then promptly taken away at 12:00:10 seconds.

Then when it was time for everyone to go home all the kids pretended to be sleeping.

It was a great party and Jack slept through the whole thing!

Phone Update 2.0

Jack has taken to playing after we put him to bed.  He slips out of bed, quietly turns his light on, turns the heat up, and plays with his toys behind his bed.  The first night we found him sound asleep behind his bed around 10PM.  

We had no idea he had been playing and we were very surprised to find him sound asleep behind his bed.  We always check in on him before we go to bed and sometimes find him like this.  I wish I had video of him playing and then just going to sleep in the same spot.

Jack found his bathing suit in his bottom drawer, which is reserved for clothes for next year, and he loves to wear his "tiger pants."  We had a big snow storm a few days after Christmas and I declared it a sledding day, so Jack put on his bathing suit.

This was the day that I made Jack eat.  He had a fit for awhile and then eventually ate a piece of plain bread.  There is a lot of drama at meal times.

Jack getting ready to go sledding, in his bathing suit and Jack watching the snow out the window below.

In addition to his tiger pants Jack has recently found great joy in Lilly's princess crown and her fairy wings so he can fly around the house.  He alternates this costume with his Spiderman costume and his Captain America helmet and shield Grandma gave him.

Tuesday of last week I started coughing,and kept coughing to the point that Thursday I was worried I might have come down with the flu.  By Friday I was in bed and have yet to leave my bed at this point in time which is Sunday night.  I have spent three full days and nights in bed with sleepless nights, coughing, aches, and chills.  Even if it's only a cold since I am pregnant it is miserable.  The first two days the children watched movies with me in bed, but then I became too sick for even that.  But at least I have some pictures with my children.

Phone Update

The Wednesday we were to leave for Utah I was rushing around to get out the door to catch our plane in NYC and I sliced my finger with a serrated knife that ended up delaying us for over 2 hours while I waited in urgent care to have my finger glued shut.

Then after that delay we sat in stand still traffic for an hour outside of the Poconos. This was the screen shot of the GPS showing me the stand still traffic.  Luckily I had given us a 3 hour window to deal with NYC traffic, unfortunately we used it all up at the urgent care center and in the middle of PA.

We eventually made it to the airport and made our flight.  Luckily the next day we were all able to meet Lincoln, who is so adorable that Lilly began lamenting the fact that we are having a girl.  She now wants another brother just as cute as Lincoln.  He is one happy baby.

Poor Jack was quite off his schedule but we eventually got him to take a nap at the hotel, and he is so adorable sleeping.

Sweet cousins in the hotel lobby.

When we returned on our red eye flight the children were exhausted.  Jack took to lying on the ground of the airport.  We arrived at 6AM and made it to our car by 7AM only to find it dead because little fingers had switched on a light before we left.  30 degree weather and no heat we sat in the car and waited for our car to be jumped, twice.  We were finally on our way home at 8AM.  Jim was a trooper and drove the whole way while the rest of us slept.

They both slept in the car like this.

That night around 11PM, about 15 minutes after I had finally fallen asleep after our no sleep red eye, Lilly woke up, came into my room and threw up in my bed.  She then threw up every 15 minutes for 10 solid hours.  Jack joined her the following night.

That was all before Christmas, which seems like such a long time ago now.