Yesterday

Tuesday morning was rather strange. I dropped off my four seemingly healthy kids (plus three of the neighbors kids) at school early in that morning, but by 9:30 am the school started calling.

Oldest Daughter wasn’t feeling well and had a fever. Could I come pick her up?
I had just arrived at work when the call came so I turned around and drove to the high school to get her. As we were driving home, the Jr. High school called about my son. Same symptoms.

I took them both home, fluffed up some pillows on the couch for them and had every intention of going to work until the high school called again.

“Mrs. Rock Chick, I know we just sent your daughter home, but we have your other daughter here in the nurses office now and she needs to be picked up. She has a fever.”

My goodness!

Let me just say that I wasn’t surprised to see the Jr. High School calling me again at 11:40 am. After all, that’s where child #4 was.

This time, though, it wasn’t about one of my kids. It was about my neighbors’ (Tom and Lynette’s) daughter. Same symptoms, but they were unable to locate either one of her actual parents (shocking!) and I am the emergency contact.

Sometimes, I swear, I really have 8 children.

I went to get her and while I was there, checked that my last remaining healthy child had not gone to the nurse complaining of anything. Nope. We were good there.

By Wednesday evening everyone seemed relatively well and I chalked it up to some unknown virus. I have a big family, viruses are not hard to come by, especially since Oldest Daughter is teaching pre-schoolers as one of her high school classes.

Everyone went back to school but yesterday, the school nurse from the high school called me again. It seems Oldest Daughter wasn’t feeling well again and what the school nurse said kind of shocked me.

“Mrs. Rock Chick, when you pick her up, I think you should take her to the emergency room. Her color looks really bad, her eyes look dark, she is dizzy.” She also added something about when you press on her skin, the color doesn’t return as quickly as it should.”

What does that mean?

“Dehydration... anemia...could be several things.” I was told.

I picked her up and we went straight to my favorite ER doubting my parental illness skills with visions of all sorts of terrible illnesses I probably overlooked running through my head. This ER is not a trauma center so there’s rarely any waiting and one of the doctors there is fabulous. That guy has fixed up a whole host of my children’s various sports injuries and medical emergencies.

They took us in right away and the doctor came in and said that he was pretty sure it was influenza. One peek in her throat (which wasn’t sore at all) made him think strep as well. A bunch of swabs and a bag of fluids later, we were discharged with a note to keep her home from school and work until Monday morning and they’d call us with the results of the swab tests. Both of the rapid tests came back negative, but the doctor was still “highly suspicious”.

If it was influenza we would be past the point of anti-viral medication, but if it is strep, she will need antibiotics.

My gut tells me that since the other kids recovered rather quickly, it is not influenza, but some other virus, but it probably will also be strep which is why this child is so much sicker than the other ones. Last time, when she had strep, the instant test came back negative, too.

Sometimes I really feel like I need a vacation. Sigh. Since that’s not going to happen, I’ll have to just escape tomorrow for a while with my fantasy boyfriend, Jon Bon Jovi.

My husband has Halle Berry. It all works out ok.

Do you remember when I stalked Bon Jovi? He was taping a show and his security guard let me sit on wood chips for three hours like a crazy woman just to get a glimpse of him?

Well, the show he was taping is airing tomorrow on A&E at 10/9c!

I heard the entire concert from my wood chip seats and he sounded wonderful! It will be great to actually see the tape!

And...Bon Jovi is coming to Chicago again (to see me, of course!) in February! I can’t wait.

So, yesterday kind of sucked, but I have a feeling tomorrow will be better :)

It’s Jovi time!