Friday, September 14, 2012

Faced with Strep

Alyssa’s home from school today.

She complained of a sore throat on Wednesday night. Her temperature started rising about 9pm, I dosed her with Tylenol and told her to go to sleep.

The next morning, the fever was back, so she stayed home from school and I called the doctor. We don’t mess around with sore throats around here. With A’s history of strep, we head to the doctor at the first painful swallow.

The nurse took one look at Alyssa’s flushed cheeks and said, “Fever?”

I nodded and informed her that Tom had given A some medicine about forty-five minutes before. The nurse took her temp and it was still 101.4 even after meds.

Finally the doctor arrived, felt Alyssa’s neck and told her that her lymph nodes were impressive. He informed me that nodes of that size always indicate either ear infection or a throat infection.

After looking in her ears he declared, “Must be the throat.”

One look at her throat and he announced she has an impressive infection brewing in there. A swipe of the cotton swab and a two minute test later and we’re walking out with a prescription for an antibiotic to fight the strep and an appointment with an ENT.

So we finally made it home at about 7pm last night, after going to the pharmacy to pick up A’s antibiotics and then going to my mom’s to pick up O, who’d been there since the bus dropped her off at 3:45. Jaxon was there, which made for a nice afternoon for her.

Olivia had eaten dinner with my mom and stepdad but Alyssa was actually hungry when we got home. Tom was fixing his own dinner when we finally walked in the door. Olivia requested a Little Ponies movie and Alyssa was hopeful that some chicken and stars soup would feel okay to her throat.

By 7:45, the girls and I were sitting on the couch reading O’s requisite three books when Tom showed up with a bowl of pie and ice cream. He offered a bite to Olivia. She pointed to me, indicating that she wanted me to feed it to her.

I must have made a face because Tom stood up suddenly, stormed from the room and called to Olivia, telling her that if she wanted a bite, she needed to come to him.

She refused.

He called again.

She ignored him.

He finally came back, refused to even look at me, and fed her a few bites of the dessert. After about three bites she asked when she could be done and he left without a word.

Oh, dear Lord, the drama!

Okay, so I might have made a face of resignation. I was tired. And let me point out right here, that at no point did I mentioned having had dinner myself because I hadn’t. I’d been taking care of everyone else and by 8:00 decided it was just too late for dinner and I was too tired to figure out what to fix. Olivia was already sacked out on one side of me and Alyssa was wrapped in a blanket and almost asleep on the other side.

And you know what? Sometimes, I can’t help the faces I make. My emotions are pretty clear most of the time. From annoyance to joy, it’s written across my big fat face.

Deal with it, is what I’m saying.

We have a sick kid. Yes, it’s ‘just’ strep throat. Yes, she’ll get better and then we’ll see about surgery to remove adenoids and/or tonsils which will hopefully cure the strep thing for good. But for now, right that second? Pie and ice cream for the healthy six year old was pretty damned low on my list of priorities. And if she wasn’t willing to follow the pie and ice cream to the other room? I’m thinking it was pretty low on hers too.

Ehhh, it’s all fine now. She got her pie and ice cream, her dad got his sulk in and by the end of the evening, as I was leading the sick girl to bed, we kissed and made up.

All’s well that ends well.

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