Day Care Illness #573...

or just the other 572 that have finally caught up with me...

It seems that Owen has been sick since starting day care back in July. Nothing serious, just the standard runny nose all the time. I've often though how lucky we've been that Maddie hasn't been sick a lot, but maybe that's because she was in day care in Virginia as well and has built up immunity to a lot of the bugs. Well, Maddie complained of a sore throat last Wed and Thurs and then Friday afternoon she had a fever.

Those with kids know that when your kid gets sick it is difficult for you not to as well since they are inevitable coughing or sneezing (or worse) in your face all the time. So naturally I had a low grade fever on Friday as well. Nothing big, just didn't fell great. We had a great weekend except for the development of this really irritating cough. Monday I had our 30 week check up with the OB who said I could try Robitussin, which I did with no relief.

Monday afternoon I started having fevers again that were only relieved temporarily by Tylenol, in fact by Tuesday they were coming back a few hours before the next dose of Tylenol was due. By Tuesday night I knew I could not work on Wed so I called in sick. I didn't sleep either Mon or Tues night because of coughing or fever so by Wed morning Ben thankfully offered to go to work a little late and take the kids to day care for me. I helped him get them ready and then didn't move off the couch until 10am when I took a shower. I folded a small amount of laundry before falling asleep on the couch again until about 2pm. I called Ben to say hi, but before I did that I checked my heart rate and it was 120... he told me to swing by the hospital and get some IV fluid and then we could all go home together.

By the time I got to the hospital it was 3pm. Everyone on Labor and Delivery is really nice. I've stopped by many times just to say to Ben so I've seen most everyone there I think at least in passing. I filled out some papers since I was officially there as a patient and to be seen in triage. I put on my mask (since I had a fever and cough) so I hopefully didn't expose any moms/new babies to my illness and sat in the waiting room. A few minutes later a nice nurse came to get me and explained that since triage was full I would be put in a private room (which was probably better for everyone else). For those who don't know, "triage" is just that. It is not being admitted to the hospital, but rather a place you go to have someone (a nurse or doctor) decide whether you need to be admitted, need short term monitoring, or like me need some sort of brief intervention and then go home.

Once I got to my room and changed, the nurse hooked me up to the fetal monitor (which is standard) to make sure the baby was OK. He was. Ben commented though that we were competing for fastest heart rate. Mine was 130's and baby's was 150's. Then came the fun part... getting my IV. Normally I have great veins but apparently I was more dehydrated than I realized since it took 2 nurses and an anesthesiologist 2 tries each before I had a working IV. They still had to stick me again later for blood but that part was easy. So I just hung out for a few hours while they gave me 3 liters of fluids and tried to run some blood work and a flu test (yes, I did have a flu shot). Unfortunately the lab was crazy backed up because the computers were down so I didn't get the results before I left at 7pm but I did feel a bit better after all that fluid.

Ben had already picked the kids up at 6 and had fed them dinner by the time I got home so all there was to do was help get them off to bed before crashing ourselves. I took the Codeine they had given me for my cough which I'm not sure really helped or not. I think I'll try 2 pills tonight but if it doesn't help then I guess I'll just deal with the cough because while all this medication is safe to take during pregnancy, less or none is always better. I called in sick again today which, other than not getting paid, is good because while I haven't had any more fevers I'm still very run down and still trying to catch up on fluids.

OK, so now for some pictures...

The first is of our Super Snow Bowl crew. We hosted the annual super bowl party here in Rochester. Many thanks to all who attended. I think it was a great time. We had guests from as far away as Massachusetts, Virginia, and Florida and then many fellow "New Yorkians" (is that a word?)/Rochestorians (I think that's what people around here refer to themselves as... anyway, here is the group that actually played snow football.

And then here are some pictures of Owen, who has officially become our little walking/half running boy!