First I want to say how excited I am that I got a shower this morning. I also want to give some mothering advice-don’t rub your eye while on a trampoline, especially while your three kids are jumping on it. I mean I already have crappy eye sight, now it’s just a bit worse. Finally, to the point of the article… My children are finally learning to share; just not intentionally.
As a quick reminder this is the time of year for sniffles and sneezes. Yes, there is no cure for the common cold. However, you need to be aware of symptoms to look for in case what you thought was just a cold is more.
So let me fess up- I tend to ignore Diva when she complains to me. I often worry she is a hypochondriac. I have learned to ignore but observe her when she starts complaining about an aliment. It was no different a few weeks back when she started telling me her throat hurt. I took her temperature, looked at her throat and watched her for signs. Everything was fine. However, after two weeks I decided to have her checked out. Doctors have previously told me that most colds will run its course in 7 to 10 days; two weeks at the most. So as a rule, after two weeks of symptoms I take the kids in.
At the appointment the doctor looked at her throat and checked her out. She had some drainage but otherwise seemed ok. As a precaution he did a strep test. There are two kinds they ran- a rapid test that takes about 15 minutes and a culture test, where they actually try and grow the strep. After 15 minutes the rapid strep test came back negative. They deemed it a cold and sent us home with Zyertec. Until that night when her doctor called saying he is shocked to have to tell me her culture test came back positive. He also told me I needed to bring the rest of the troops in for testing.
The next day we marched into the clinic and the rest of them got tested and all three ended up with strep!
Ah, family togetherness. Oh, forgot to mention within three days Hubs and I joined the rest of the troops and a our entire family of 5 had strep. So lovely and kind. But how did it happen? How did all 5 of us end up with an illness being undetected?
Listed below is a image of the difference between viral and bacterial strep provided by Health Info Blog.
So lesson learned? Mayyyybbbee your hypochondriac isn’t making it up after all. I never said I would win parent of the year award.