Sick House

I stayed home from work today.

It's been a whopper of a week so far. Last Wednesday, Nile came down with a fever. When I picked him up from my parents' house, he was curled up in my mom's lap (which he NEVER does). Then he looked at me and said, "Mom, I want to go to bed." So that's what we did - he went to bed around 6 that night.

On Thursday, he claimed he was feeling better, and I needed to get some things done at work - so I went in for a half day, and planned to pick him up around 2. Right around the time I was leaving to get Nile and Novak, Tom calls to tell me Nate is in the nurse's office at school running a fever. So Tom headed to pick him up, and we met at home with our sick boys. They chilled out watching TV that afternoon, and both were in bed around 6:30.

On Friday, Nate said he was feeling better. The "mom radar" in me thought he wasn't quite over the bug, but he wasn't acting sick. So I sent him to school. He didn't have a fever, so we thought he was just a little tired. Sure enough, at 1:30, the nurse calls - Nate was sent to her office (unwillingly), and he has a low (99.9) fever. He doesn't want to come home - so I let him stay the rest of the day.

Nate ran a low fever all weekend - it was highest at night, 101.8 degrees at the worst. So when he woke up Monday with a fever, we decided it was time to take him to the doctor. Whether he felt sick or not...

Since Novak had been coughing a lot on Sunday, I figured I'd take him along just in case he was getting sick.

Well, after a 1 hour wait in the doctor's office, we get in to have the boys checked. Novak has been asleep in his car seat the whole time. They take his temperature and it's about 102.5. I was shocked - he had not been feverish that morning. Poor kid was boiling hot, miserable, and so lethargic. It was scary! (But I was so glad he was doing this at the doctor's office!). After getting checked out, we got the diagnosis: a double ear infection, RSV, and breathing treatments 4 times a day, because he was short of breath and his lungs sounded "wheezy." And I was cautioned by the doctor to watch him carefully, in case his breathing gets worse. Yikes!

So I have a sick baby today, who needs his mommy a lot more than John Deere needs me.

Oh, and Nate? The boy who has told me he wasn't sick and felt fine for the last five days? He has strep throat.