Caught a Cold

Just when I was starting to get back into writing things on a semi-regular basis, I end up taking a little bit of a forced break. I have been feeling under the weather this week, I think I picked up a head cold from someone at work. I started feeling sort of crummy Monday night, spent Tuesday and Wednesday with a low fever and my head all congested. All I wanted to do was sleep when I got home from work. I am finally feeling a little bit better, though I still have the congestion in my head and now also in my chest, but at least the fever is gone. Just in time for the Marquette game tonight, which is good because I plan on watching the whole thing. The Badgers already lost, which was a bit of a downer, but then Michigan State lost too, so MU has to win. We're down 36-30 right now at the half, but Jae Crowder got in foul trouble early. I am hoping the second half will make it worth staying awake.

Getting Better Slowly

Well, as of tonight, Alison's throat is doing much, much better. She has three days worth of antibiotics in her and the fever is gone, her throat isn't nearly as painful (according to her) and it looks much better as well. Her tonsils are still swollen and there are still a couple of white spots, but they are not nearly as red. In fact, if it were not for the size of her tonsils, the color of her throat looks almost normal. So obviously the antibiotics are working.

Kris did make an appointment next week for Alison to see the ENT at the clinic. Hopefully they will tell us whether or not Alison tonsils should come out or not. Her regular doctor didn't seem to think they needed to come out back in February, but the fact that she has had strep throat now at least three times in the last year (I seem to recall it being four times, but I could be wrong). Hopefully we will get this all solved soon. I hate to see Alison sick (so does Kris).

Update on Alison

So here is the story....

Alison was still complaining that her throat hurt on Friday. Kris called the doctor when she got home from school and while she couldn't get in to see her doctor, they notified him that Ali was still hurting and that her throat had actually gotten worse, so he wrote an order for another swabbing of her throat, all we had to do was show up to lab first thing Saturday morning. Well by the time I got home from work, Ali had developed a fever on top of the sore throat now. I was going to get her in the shower and get her cleaned up so she could just snuggle under a blanket for the remainder of the night, and as she was getting undressed she pointed out a slight rash she was developing on her arm. I started looking at the rest of her body and it was starting on her feet and legs too. She started crying thinking she was getting chicken pox. I knew it wasn't chicken pox, and from our experience with Sarah, I had a pretty good idea it was scarlatina.

Kris and I discussed it and we decided to call the doctor first thing in the morning and see if we could get her in to see the pediatrician on call. I went in to work early with the plan of being home a little after 8:00 so I could go along to the doctor. I called Kris at a little past 8:00 since I got a little hung up and she said she had called and got an appointment at 10:15. They told her to take Ali to the lab and have her throat swabbed ad they would do the rapid strep test and then the doctor would let us know what the results were when we saw her at 10:15.

When we got there we let the nurse know everything that was happening, and she had a look at Ali and thought the same thing we did, that is sure looked like strep throat. Then when the doctor came in we went over it all again with her, and showed her the rash, and her first thought was that Alison had scalatina, however the strep test was negative again. I don't know how that was possible, but it was. The doctor also couldn't believe it since all the signs were there for strep throat.

Luckily, she decided to treat Alison as if she had strep throat. She gave her a prescription for antibiotics and said they would continue to grow the culture and would check it Sunday and again on Monday and would call if it turned positive. If after the first couple days Alison didn't show improvement to call and get back in on Monday to see Dr. Sabnis and they would probably run a test for mono. She didn't think it was mono because it isn't typically seen in children as young as Alison, but since it presents very similar to strep throat and the strep test kept coming back negative it was the only other thing she could think of. So we'll see how things are on Monday,

Good News.... So Far

Ali's trip to the doctor was ok yesterday. He looked at her throat and said it looked like strep, but the rapid test came back negative. They were going to grow a culture and we should have the results by Wednesday.

Ali is complaining that her throat really hurts and it looks even worse than yesterday morning. I have a bad feeling that we'll be getting a call today or tomorrow saying the regular test came up positive.

All Done

Alison finished her antibiotics yesterday and so far so good. Her throat apparently doesn't hurt anymore, but I still think her tonsils look a little large. Then again, I only play a doctor at home. Her doctor wanted us to call to make an appointment for a follow up so that he can check to see if everything has cleared up a day or two after she finished her medicine, so we will have to wait until we can get her in to know for sure. I am hopeful that this time around we have taken care of things.

Strep Throat

Monday morning we had to call school and tell them that Alison wouldn’t be in. She was running a fever and her tonsils were so inflamed you could barely see her uvula. She had just finished a 10-day course of antibiotics last week for strep throat but she even right after she had complained that her throat still hurt.

Well our worst fears were confirmed Monday morning when her doctor looked at her and told us, the antibiotics didn’t work and she had strep throat again. This time he put her on a different antibiotic, another 10-day course. So HOPEFULLY this time it will work. Kris and I are both starting to think that she may need to have her tonsils out. When we asked her doctor, he said that it may be a cause, but he didn’t think that was necessary just yet, so we’ll just keep out fingers crossed and wait and see.

Strep Throat

Saturday night Alison was feeling under the weather. Then all day Sunday she was running a fever. She stayed home from school again on Tuesday with a 102 fever and when Kris got home she took Alison to the doctor. He did a rapid test for strep throat and you guessed it, it came back positive. She got a prescription for some antibiotic (I forget which one at the moment, but I think it is amoxicillin) but on top of that he thought she had a virus on top of it. Her head is very congested so I don't doubt it. I know she was bummed out with missing school and was even more worried going back that she might get someone else sick. The good thing is that at least it didn't escalate into pneumonia this time.

Sick Again

Since Sunday morning Ali was feeling under the weather. Her fever was in the neighborhood of 102 to 103. And Kris took her in on Monday and she saw PA. She asked how long Ali had her cough which we had only noticed since that day. They ordered a chest x-ray and it turns out she had pneumonia. So she got a prescription for some antibiotics and Tylenol. After three days of not having her temp go down, even after giving her Tylenol and Motrin, we took her back in on Friday. Luckily this time we got to see her regular doctor. He ordered another chest x-ray and it turns out she had pneumonia in both lungs now. So he prescribed a second antibiotic and she got an inhaler as well. A day later her temp was practically gone.

The bad part was that last week was Red Ribbon Week at school, and Ali had to miss all of it. She was very sad about that. But at least she’ll be ready to go back on Monday.

Cheer Season Begins

You know school is near when the cheer season starts. Friday night was Junior Indians night at halftime of the high school football game (sorry, no pictures, though I may look for a place to post the video to link). Today Sarah had her first football game. this year they have to be at the field by 10:00 AM. We had a couple of things to to so Sarah got dropped off but we made it back before the start of the game.




Unfortunately, we couldn't stay because we had to run Alison to the doctor. She had been complaining of her ears begin clogged which is in addition to almost two weeks of nasal/sinus congestion. We ended up calling the doctor and had to take Alison to get checked out. Turns out she has a sinus infection on top of swelling from seasonal allergies. This is what was causing the ear congestion as well. So now she is on a two week cycle of antibiotics as well as a prescription for Flo-Nase. At least in a week or so she will be able to breathe again.