Sick Days

My little kids have had a rough time this winter. Brayden and Brookelyn got sick with some bug at the beginning of January. Both were pretty wiped outfor a few days even when they seemed better. A couple of weeks ago Brookelyn got a high fever (103.2) for a few days. I tried to drop her off at her classroom the Wednesday before last and she didn't want to let go of my hand. It sometimes takes her a minute or so to let go and find something she wants to do in the classroom, but this felt different. So I kept her with me while I did a bunch of laminating in the teacher's workroom and then we went home and spent the afternoon on the couch. The next day she had the high fever and she was attached to me all day. So we sat and watched tv or slept and I didn't even try to get anything done. The next day I kept Brayden home too because he wasn't acting himself and by the end of that afternoon he was laying on the couch and Brookelyn was feeling better. We spent the weekend trying to relax and get better. Luckily, Sasha has been fine and just has a runny nose. It has been raining A LOT. It's great because it's nice to lay around on rainy days, but a bummer because it is kind of chilly too. Anyway, I thought we were all better and then Tuesday Brayden developed a bad cough. The kind where it sounds horrible to listen to. He coughed so hard and so often on Tuesday and Wednesday nights that none of us got much sleep. It's hard to get him to take any medicine, but we would force the issue so he could get some sleep. I finally brought him to the doctor on Thursday evening because it didn't seem like it was getting better on its own. I usually wait a few days to go to the doctor because there usually isn't anything they can do. But his cough was really bad. He coughed all of the way there and all of the way in the elevator and waiting room. We waited a very long time for the on call doctor and he chose the minute she walked into the room to stop coughing. Seriously. He didn't cough again until we got to the car and were driving away. Of course, his temperature was normal there too, so I just looked like a crazy, overprotective mom. The doctor (not our normal doctor, but someone who was on call that night) really did treat me like I was being over the top to bring him in on a rainy night when he was obviously fine. I asked her what she would have told me if he had been coughing like crazy and she named a cough medicine. We picked it up at the pharmacy downstairs before we left. When we got home I asked Ray to give him some since Brayden was coughing again. Brayden smelled it and refused to take it. Ray told him that if he didn't take it he would have to bring him back to the doctor who would give him a shot. Brayden put on his coat and went to the front door and said he wanted to go to the doctor because the medicine was disgusting and he wasn't going to take it. He wanted the shot instead. I was upstairs at that point putting the girls to bed and heard this happening. I just smiled to myself because I am always telling Ray not to threaten Brayden with things if he wasn't willing to follow through. It turned into a loud scene with Brayden yelling he wanted a shot and Ray finally saying he didn't want to go out in the rain. They settled it by compromising on Ray putting the medicine into a little apple juice and Brayden took it. It worked, he hardly coughed for several hours and we were able to give him another dose with apple juice in the middle of the night. He got enough sleep that he seemed much better the next day.
I had had a bad toothache for weeks, but hadn't been able to see my dentist because of the kids being sick. I had been taking pain medicine for a couple of weeks. They were all well on Thursday so I called and got an appointment at my dentist that day. I needed a root canal and crown. Nice.