They Can't Share Anything, But Sickness

My children are great at sharing with each other. One thing that is. Illness! Three out of the four children have been taken down by a cold within the last three weeks. And I wish I could say it was the oldest three, but the very oldest is the only one who is not sick. CJ started with a cold around the time I went into the hospital to have Alyssa. It quickly turned into a raging double ear infection for him which we thought we had cleared up with Amoxicillin. Kaitlyn started getting cold like symptoms shortly after that, but I didn't really think too much of it with her. However, last week when my 2 week old baby girl started sounding congested I began to worry. What if it's RSV? She's so little and there's nothing she can take. She continued eating fine, acting fine, and had no fever though.

Today though things seemed to take a turn for the worse. Actually, it started yesterday. She did not want to be put down. Then last night she was very restless and kept coughing pretty hard and it seemed like she was having a hard time catching her breath. CJ also ended up waking up complaining that his ear hurt during the night. So when he ended up sleeping for more than 12 hours last night and then woke up crabby and saying his ear still hurt I decided to call the doctor. I asked for both him and Alyssa to be seen because of her cough. Neither had a fever though. So off to the doctor we went and CJ still has his ear infection so his antibiotic was changed. What's worse is Alyssa has an ear infection too. So now she's on medicine and we have to watch her closely. If she gets a fever she's immediately going to the hospital. We have to monitor her breathing too. If it becomes difficult to breath we have to call the doctor.

CJ and Alyssa were the only ones we were actually being seen for, but I had all four children with me as it's February vacation. The doctor heard Asthmatic Kaitlyn's cough and did not like how it sounded so she put her on the schedule too. She heard wheezing and decided it was time to move her Asthma action plan into the danger zone. She is now taking a steroid for the next five days along with her albuterol treatment every four hours and her Singulair. So everyone is pretty sick here.

I'm most worried about Alyssa of course. My breastmilk should help her get over this, but for whatever reason it did not prevent her from getting an ear infection to begin with. Perhaps because I also have a cold. We will continue to breastfeed her and give her the antibiotic and just hope that her breathing remains fine and she does not get a fever so we can avoid the hospital. And our doctor will be calling to check up on her this weekend too which is nice that she does that. It was also great of her to check on Kaitlyn even though we weren't originally there for her.

Will Visions of Sugar Plums Dance in Their Heads?

This is the question of the day. Will Kaitlyn and CJ have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads tomorrow night or will they be all bogged down with fluid? If you haven't guessed Kaitlyn and CJ both have ear infections. Kaitlyn's is worse than CJ's, but you wouldn't know it to look at them. First of all the only reason I took them to the doctor was because Kaitlyn complained her ear hurt. Other than a cough with her and some congestion she doesn't really seem sick. However, CJ has been cranky, not sleeping, not eating, and even running a fever. Of course CJ also had the MMR vaccine last week which can cause a fever in 7-12 days which brings us to now.

But last night when Kaitlyn said her ear hurt I knew I'd be at the doctor's office today. I sent her to school though because it was only a half day and she had no fever. She didn't want to miss her party. She made it the whole day too, but was very relieved to hear I had set up a doctor's appointment for her later in the afternoon.

When we saw the doctor she asked about Kaitlyn's symptoms and before looking said I'm sure it's an ear infection. She prescribed pain medication and drops for her ears. Then she checked Kaitlyn all out and sure enough her right ear was very red and inflamed. So she's now on Amoxicillin for the next ten days.

Then it was CJ's turn to be examined. The doctor asked about his symptoms. I told her he's not eating or drinking much. He's very stuffy and has a cough. He's not himself. Very cranky and doesn't want to be touched, but doesn't want to be put down. He's just miserable. So she tried to examine him which he was really having nothing of. I've never seen a child be so difficult to have his ears looked at. A lollipop didn't make him stop screaming and neither could I. The nurse had to come in and blow bubbles just so the doctor could look in his ears. And even then his sisters had to entertain him by popping those bubbles. His ears don't look as bad as Kaitlyn's, but he does have fluid on the ears. So she also put him on Amoxicillin for the next ten days.

Right now they are all asleep and I can only hope there are visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. Hopefully they stay asleep tonight. Both of them were up last night. Kaitlyn I don't mind so much because she's pretty easy to get back to bed, but CJ is impossible when he's in a condition like this. I get to the point where I just don't know what to do for him and I feel so bad that I can't make him feel better. Thankfully it's not a virus though because usually once they are on antibiotics they are up and about and just fine the next day. I need happy children tomorrow.