The slow road to recovery

This has been one rough week.  I didn't sleep well Sunday night and woke up feeling sickish Monday morning but still I showered and got ready for work as normal with the addition of periodic rests in bed.  As I sat in the front hall looking at my boots, with Rich ready to walk out the door, I changed my mind and decided to stay home.  Now, if I had a commute that consisted of a twenty minute drive in my car, I would have toughed it out.  I have a weak stomach to begin with and not feeling well doesn't necessarily mean that I'm actually sick.  There was another train incident the Friday before and it had taken me over two hours to get to work.  All I could think of was being stuck on a train and getting sick.

The school nurse called at 11:30 to say that Anna was throwing up.  At that point, I felt justified in having stayed home.  Grammy, who had dropped the girls off at school, commented that there didn't seem to be as many kids that morning and the parking lot hadn't been in its normal crowded state.  Anna didn't seem to be that bad off at first and so I kept my fingers crossed that it would be a fast moving virus, in and out of her system in no time.

Here I have to back up and say that poor Anna has had a tough month.  She had those semi-torturous urology appointments and was placed on ten days of disgusting (her words, not mine) antibiotics administered four times a day to clear up asymptomatic bacteria in her system.  With one day remaining, she began complaining of a sore throat.  Yup, strep throat.  This time she was prescribed amoxicillin, which she doesn't mind the taste of.  She had just finished the last dose of that on Sunday and then Monday she comes down with a freaking stomach virus.

And yes, what a wonderful stomach virus it was.  There are five other kids that sit at Anna's table in her class.  Four of them were also out last week with this.  One classroom had eleven students absent.  Shut the school down.  Bleach it out for the love of god.

Emily woke up at midnight and threw up all over her bed.

Allie had some weird GI stuff going on the week before and we had even brought her to the pedi for a throat culture.  We had switched the milk the girls drink and thought it was related but in hindsight, she probably had a mild version of the virus.

I ended up staying home from work until today.  What could I do?  I didn't feel well and for two nights, I barely slept.  I didn't want Grammy to get sick and someone needed to run the laundry and tend to the sickies.  They both lost weight they didn't have to lose.  Just today, they started eating.

I am very lucky to have family here to help.  Without Grammy and Papa, this week would have been so much more difficult to get through.

So although Allie avoided the worst part of the virus, she had to learn some pretty tough lessons at school.  Some of which I don't think a second grader will really even understand.  It's been a really difficult week for her but tomorrow is a new day and all we can do is go from there.