I'm Here ... In Spite of the Plague. Feed the Children. This is a Long One.

Oh, y'all. It has been a doozy last 4 or 5 days. Whew. I need a do-over.

The Plague 2009 has been upon us, is upon us and will be upon us ... as in, I don't think we're quite finished with it yet. I can hardly believe what has transpired in the last week.

When I went on my small bloggy break we had just finished Day 8 of our cleanse. Charlotte had started running fever on Tuesday evening (Day 7) and thought it was just a simple viral thing. And we're still pretty sure it was a viral thing, but there was nothing ...NOTHING, simple about it.

This child ran fevers between 101 and 102.5 for FOUR straight days. I only managed to break it twice and it was short lived when I did. I don't treat fevers that are below 101 usually and for the meds to not be able to break the high ones was ...well ...FREAKING ME OUT A LITTLE!!!!

I took Charlie to the doctor on Thursday and he (who -was- not- her- normal -doctor and whom I did not care for ...especially his little dig about vaccinations ...) didn't really know what was wrong with her. Probably a virus was his best guess, but said if her fever spikes we might want to take her to the local children's hospital. He did a flu test ~ which was negative ~ and sent us on our way. For only 25 bucks and a prescription for Amoxicillon for something that may or may not be there. Whaa?

Anyway.

That night (last Thursday) I was in the recliner horking up my left lung and telling Monk that it felt like I was coughing out razor blades. I was also congested and sounded like I could take out a pack of Camels in no time flat. Monk kindly (and wisely) suggested that I head to our doctor's after hours clinic, there was still an hour left before they closed and he wanted to make sure I didn't get any sicker. I hemmed and hawed and finally conceded and headed out the door.

Y'all. I have bronchitis! Dang it all.

That time the 25 bucks got a diagnosis and TWO prescriptions. An antibiotic and a cough medicine with Codeine. Now before you get too excited about the doctor prescribed narcotics, it was pretty much a bust. But I'll get to that later.

Have I confused you yet? Good.

So Thursday night I take my Narcotic Num-Nums and proceed to go to bed. Charlie wakes up crying. I nurse her (which is a very loose term because she was not nursing well at this point) and check her temperature. It's 11:45 pm and her temp is 102.4. I give her some Advil and we both go back to sleep. I'm awakened at around 1 am by her squirming around. Out of habit I touch her forehead and she is BURNING UP! I take her temp again and it is now 103.8!!!

I JUMP (and I seriously mean JUMP!) out of bed and proceed to throw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I wake Monk and tell him I'm taking Charlotte to the children's hospital. I grab and extra set of jammies for her, some socks, wrap her in a blanket and head out the door. It's now 1:15 am. Children's hospital is only about a 15 minute drive and I was ever so relieved when I pulled into the parking lot to see it wasn't that crowded. I throw open Charlie's door, get her out of the carseat and proceed a few steps. I pull her to me as I'm walking and touch her forehead to my lips.

Nothin'.

The fever was practically gone. I stood in the garage for a few minutes contemplating what I was going to do. I walked back to Phil and got into the backseat with Charlotte. I sat there with her held next to me for probably 15 minutes and then decided to head home. I wasn't going to expose her to every other germ in Fort Worth if she wasn't running a dangerous fever anymore. And so we headed home.

After getting home I nursed her in the recliner and we stayed there to sleep. She woke me up and hour later throwing up all over me. It was fun times, my friends.

I had a chiropractor appointment on Friday and I took Charlie with me so we both could get lasered and adjusted. She was still running a high fever and very lethargic. Luckily for me, her normal doctor called while I was driving home and asked about her. When I told the nurse what was going on, she told the doctor who in turn wanted me to bring Charlotte back in that afternoon!! Oy.

Now are you confused?

We went back that afternoon and had yet another flu test done (Charlotte is not a fan of a giant Q-tip thingys being shoved up her nose!) and had a strep test done. Negatory on the deuce. Her doctor was perplexed and a little concerned. She ordered a blood test and an xray.

I left her office and proceeded to the lab. Y'all. Consider yourself lucky if you have never had to watch someone draw blood from your baby. Oh my. When we walked in I told the girl she had better be a One Stick Wonder because my baby was not going to be a pin cushion. She assured me she was and she kept her word. She only stuck her once, but she dug around with the needle in her arm for about 10 MINUTES! I'm pretty sure that if I stuck a needle in my arm that at some point I would, in fact, hit a vein! Then once she did hit the vein the blood came out very sloooooooooooooooooooooooowly. My word. I was never so glad to be done with something in my life


The x-rays weren't much better. There were issues there as well. Then on my way home Monk proceeds to call and tell me that Liv has a fever of 102. Um ... okay. I was never so glad to pull into my driveway in all my life.

The doctor had put stat orders on both of these procedures and was going to call me that evening (Friday) with the results. Would you believe me if I told you that the doctor called and said the xray place messed up and we weren't going to have the results until Monday?! And would you believe me again if I told you that the doctor called back an hour and a half later to tell me that THE LAB DIDN'T TAKE ENOUGH BLOOD TO RUN THE TEST?!?!?!

Needless to say, she told me that if Charlie wasn't any better by Saturday evening then we needed to go to the children's hospital. ::sigh::

Saturday came and Liv woke with a fever of 103. Charlie was 102. I had to go to my great-nephew's birthday party and had determined if Charlotte wasn't any better by the time I got home I was taking her in. After arriving at my niece's house I noticed that Hope was a little quiet and pale. We took her temperature and it was 101. Really? Three kids with temperatures and a momma with bronchitis. I was fairly certain that at this point if anyone came to our house they were going to need a hazmat suit. It was that bad.

When I came home from the party Charlotte seemed to have perked up a little. Hope was miserable, Liv was doing better and Grace just bebopped around as if the world was her oyster. I, on the other hand, wanted to collapse.

Charlotte's fever broke Saturday night and she stayed fever all night and all day today. Thank you, Lord! Liv on the other hand woke up feverish and ended up vomiting. (Which interestingly enough, Hope felt the need to reinact the vomit scene by coughing and gagging into a bucket. She told Monk, 'I frow up, Daddy. ' HA!) She was extremely miserable all day today until this evening and she seemed to have relief from the relentless stomach cramping. Charlotte is still fever free, but very fussy and needy still. Hope seems to be fine. Freak incident or calm before the storm? I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

And me?

Well. I'm still taking my antibiotics and hacking my brains out. I ditched the cough syrup with codeine and went old school. I made myself up an old hillbilly remedy that my mom used to give us as kids: Honey, Whiskey and Lemon. The honey coats your throat to soothe it, the whiskey dilates your bronchial tubes and the lemon helps break up the congestion. It's done more for me today than the prescription one has for the last two days.

The recipe is as follows:

Honey, Whiskey and Lemon Cough Syrup (and hot toddy)

~ 1/2 c. honey
~ 1/4 -1/2 c. whiskey
~ 1/4c. lemon

That's it. I put all mine in a Mason jar and shook it up. Done. Take about a tablespoon every 4 hours. Or more if the kids are driving you nuts.

It's so pretty ...



Some of you may say, 'But Michelle! That has whiskey in it!".

I say, 'Yep. And if it doesn't stop me coughing at least I won't care."

Okay. Not really. I'm not a teetotaler anyway, but I can assure you that there is not enough alcohol in a measley tablespoon to turn you into some babbling lush.

Unless this post could be considered written by a babbling lush then disregard that last statement.

Today has been spent recovering, recouping, cleaning and trying to get the general mayhem that has permeated our lives for the last 5 days under control. I will tell you now that after Day 9 of the cleanse, all deals were off. For our own sanity we chose to go off for the weekend just to make things a little easier. As you could imagine. We are going right back to it tomorrow and we don't feel one single bit guilty about it. (You should see how much weight Monk has lost! Wow! I should have taken before and after pics of us!)

But today was for comfort. So I made this ...



.... and we called it a day.