The Tale of One Weekend

Last weekend R and I packed up the kids and took them back to our home town for the annual alumni basketball tournament. Yes, R and I are that couple who dated all through high school and then got married. The fact that we both grew up in the same town, graduated from the same high school (there's only one, the town isn't that big), and our parents still both live in that town generally make for a pretty fun alumni weekend. We get to catch up with friends from high school, see who is getting married, pregnant or divorced (sometimes it is all three, a trifecta!), R plays basketball and I pretend to watch, the bars have free beer on Saturday and we have free babysitters. Yay, good time had by all! Not so much this year.

The Thursday before the festivities I woke up with a sore throat. Being the mom that I am sore throats can't get me down, I played through the pain. Friday wasn't much better but still I pushed through. We made it to dinner at my parents house on Friday night, by this time I was shivering and could not get warm for the life of me, J, complaining about a sore throat, spent the evening on the couch, and A seemed to have a strange pussy growth on her face. If this was a movie the "dun, dun duuun" music would be playing.

On Saturday I woke up and felt as if I had been hit by a truck. My dad made me some tea and I promptly went back to bed. J wasn't fairing much better. A's weird pussy thing had now scabbed. Sean, being the only healthy child, decided this would be a great time to try some Mucinex. We now have a file at poison control, and just in case you were wondering five pills is a fatal dose of Mucinex. Great morning.

We all rallied and went to R's first game. They won, I saw friends and gossiped (one pregnancy, no marriages or divorces). After the excitement of the game, the girls talked their papa into getting them movies and I went back to bed.

I woke up for the afternoon game but the girls were having none of it. J informed me, "Mom, we went to one game that is enough." She's a big supporter of the athletics.

At the game, which they lost by three points, I made some optimistic plans to meet my friends for dinner. I laugh at this now, what a fool I was! I never made it anywhere besides bed that night. I got back to my in-laws, J fell asleep on my lap around five. R put her to bed and I didn't move until 7:15 when I went to bed and promptly fell asleep at 7:16. Sorry friends! Apparently at some point in the night S started screaming for me. I, in my sick induced slumber, didn't hear him at all. My mother in-law took over my duties and calmed him down. Thank goodness for in-laws!

Sunday morning came and everyone still felt like junk and now R was joining in on the sick fun. By this point A's sore had become scabbed, pussy and very angry. R and I made the executive decision that an urgent care visit was needed. You would think an urgent care visit to a small town hospital would be a relatively uneventful outing. Not so in our town. A and I walked into the clinic to find a woman in the middle of a full blown melt down, she was crying and screaming about how her husband/boyfriend/significant other was going to use this to "kick her out of her home". Believe me, she made me happy to be the one sick with my pussy faced daughter. We checked in and were basically told by the triage nurse it would be best if we went to the cafeteria, maybe I didn't want A exposed to this certain brand of craziness. I gladly took that advice. One nice calm visit with a doctor later (the poor lady was nowhere in sight) we found out A had impetigo and needed to be treated with antibiotics. Just to keep you updated the count is now three down with some mysterious horrible illness and one down with impetigo. S is the only resistant and healthy member of the family.

It was decided that after the trip to the urgent care the time had come to take our poor limping little family home. Monday morning dawned with everyone was basically the same R stayed home and I went to the doctor. My diagnosis? Influenza A. I could bang my head against a wall! I had been too lazy to bring everyone in to get a flu shot, S was the only child who got one because he had to go in for a 18 month appointment. Interesting that he is the only healthy resident of our house, hmmm. Can you feel my guilt?! Almost every member of my family is sick because I'm a lazy, crap mom!

Tuesday comes and goes with more of the same. The only positive note is that the antibiotics seem to be working on the angry mess on A's face. Wednesday R finally makes it back to work. The kids and I are not quite so lucky, we still really like the couch. On Thursday J is still not up to par, I finally take her in only to find out that she doesn't have influenza A but strep throat. A quick call to my doctor confirms that I also have strep. Perhaps I'm not such a crap mom after all, if you don't consider that fact that I let my daughter go almost a week with strep.

It is now Sunday, one week after the screaming urgent care lady. Everyone seems to be doing better, the skull and cross bones have officially been removed from our front door, we are back in business and ready for the public!

Here is what I learned from my family's week long quarantine:
1. Flu shots are a good thing.
2. 4 out of 5 members of a family being sick is not a good thing.
3. The nurse at poison control named Anna is very nice, she doesn't make you fell guilty at all when your child eats potentially fatal medicine.
4. I have wonderful parents and in-laws, I don't know what I would do with out them. R and I are very lucky!
5. If our little family can get through a week where the majority of us are sick and cranky we can get through anything.
6. Antibiotics are wonderful!
7. I need a vacation!